While it has its detractors, Siri is still a popular virtual assistant for folks with an iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch — and that’s not simply because it’s built into those devices. Siri may not be able to answer all of your queries, but it still has many useful features. It can play your favorite tunes, set reminders, send quick messages, and control devices around your home.
Still, not everyone needs a virtual assistant at their beck and call, so if you’d prefer to keep Siri out of the way, Apple has provided a way to switch it off on one or all of your Apple devices.
Difficulty
What You Need
Apple iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch
It’s also possible to disable only some aspects of Siri. For example, you’re able to choose to have Siri come up only when you trigger it manually with a button on youriPhone 15rather than having it listen in for a “Hey Siri” command. You can also tweak the suggestions that Siri makes throughoutiOS 17, such as on your lock screen or whensearching for information using Spotlight. Here’s how you can bend Siri more to your will.
How to turn off Siri entirely on your iPhone or iPad
If you’re running iOS 18, it’s easy to turn Siri off. Here’s how:
Step 1:Open theSettingsapp on your iPhone or iPad.
Step 2:Scroll down to the fourth section and selectApple Intelligence & Siri.
Step 3:SelectTalk & type to Siriin the Siri Requests section, and then choose theOffoption from the next screen. Then, toggle offPress side button for SiriandType to Siri.
Step 4:If you have HomePod speakers in your home with personal requests enabled, you’ll be shown a warning advising you that your HomePods will no longer be able to recognize your voice or respond to personal requests. SelectStop using Sirito confirm this.
Step 5:SelectTurn Off Siriin the final pop-up that appears.
This will disable Siri entirely, so it will no longer respond to voice requests. However, as this final pop-up explains, it does not disable the Dictation feature. You must disable that separately in the Settings app underGeneral>Keyboard>Enable dictationif you want Siri-related information removed from Apple’s servers entirely.
How to turn off Siri on your Apple Watch
Turning Siri off on your iPhone will not automatically disable is on your Apple Watch, so you’ll have to do that separately if you want to ensure it’s off everywhere. You can also choose to leave Siri enabled on your iPhone but not your Apple Watch; Siri settings on the two devices are independent of one another.
Step 1:Open theSettingsapp on your Apple Watch.
Step 2:Scroll down and selectSiri.
Step 3:On watchOS 11 or later, chooseListen forand then selectOfffrom the next screen.
Step 4:Toggle off the switches besideRaise to speakandPress Digital Crown.
Step 5:On the next screen, scroll down and selectTurn off Sirito confirm.
You can also find the same settings by opening theWatchapp on the iPhone that’s paired to your Apple Watch and selectingSiri.
How to disable “Hey Siri”
Siri has gotten better at recognizing the “Hey Siri” key phrase that’s used to activate it with your voice. However, it’s still not perfect, and your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch can sometimes think you’re calling for Siri during normal conversations — and the shorter wake word won’t necessarily help with that.
Thankfully, it’s easy enough to adjust or disable this aspect of Siri without turning the virtual assistant off entirely. Here’s how.
Step 1:Open theSettingsapp on your iPhone or iPad, or theWatchapp on your iPhone to adjust this on your Apple Watch.
Step 2:SelectApple Intelligence & Siri.
Step 3:If you’re running iOS 18, iPadOS18, or watchOS 11, or later versions, toggle offAllow Siri When Locked. On the next screen, chooseOffto disable waking Siri by voice entirely after selectingTalk & type to Siri.
Alternatively, you can select"Hey Siri"to change it to listen only for the full “Hey Siri” phrase like it did in prior versions of iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS. This can help reduce the chance of waking Siri up inadvertently when you’re not calling for it.
Step 4:If you’re running iOS 16, iPadOS 16, or watchOS 9, or earlier, your only choice is to toggle offListen for “Hey Siri”entirely.
Step 5:If you’ve turned this off entirely, your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch will no longer listen for the key phrase, but you’ll still be able to activate Siri on-demand by pressing and holding the side button on your iPhone or iPad, or the Digital Crown on your Apple Watch. you’re able to also still raise your wrist to speak to Siri on your watch as long as you’ve left that option enabled.
Step 6:If you wish to turn “Hey Siri” on again in the future, you can simply repeat the above steps; just be aware that you’ll have to retrain Siri for your voice by saying a few sample phrases. You can also type to Siri for preferential or accessibility purposes.
How to turn off Siri Suggestions
Among Apple’s recent improvements to Spotlight are Siri Suggestions. Siri now makes suggestions for things like calling into a meeting, confirming an appointment, creating an email, searching Safari, and other actions based on your daily routine and how you use your apps. You are in control of how those suggestions appear — or not.
If you usually find Siri Suggestions helpful but want to switch some or all of them off, here’s how to do it.
Step 1:Open theSettingsapp on your iPhone or iPad and selectApple Intelligence & Siri.
Step 2:Scroll down and toggle offAllow notifications,Show in app library & Spotlight,Show when sharing, orShow listening suggestions. you may choose any combination of those switches or all of them to adjust the corresponding features.
Step 3:you may further fine-tune your Siri preferences by scrolling down and turning Siri suggestions off just for specific apps. For example, if you don’t want Siri to provide you with suggestions related to Safari, selectSafari.
Step 4:Swipe the sliders off for any function you want to deactivate. For example, turning offShow in appwill stop Siri from making suggestions while you’re using Safari. On the flip side, disablingShow in searchwill prevent content from Safari, such as your history or bookmarks, from appearing on Safari’s homepage.
How to turn off Siri iCloud sync
Siri makes extensive use of machine learning to personalize its responses to your life and habits. As Siri gets more familiar with you, it should get more efficient and useful each time you call it up.
You can use iCloud to sync Siri’s machine-learning intelligence across all of your Apple devices. This is normally enabled by default if you opt into iCloud sharing features when setting up your iPhone or iPad, but you can switch it off at any time from your iCloud settings if you’d prefer to keep what Siri’s learned about you stored only on your local device.
Step 1:Open the iPhone or iPad Settings app and select your name at the top.
Step 2:SelectiCloud.
Step 3:SelectSee allin theSaved to iCloudtab.
Step 4:Scroll down, findSiri, and toggle it off.
If you later change your mind, you’re able to easily turn any Siri functions back on by reversing the steps described above.
Lastly, if you’rereallyfed up with Siri and want to replace it with something else, see our guide onhow to replace Siri with ChatGPT on your iPhone.
