From fetching up quick information for you on the web to scheduling tasks, setting timers and alarms, playing your favorite music, and helping you with certain tasks on your device, Google Assistant is undoubtedly that true assistant that makes our lives a lot better. However, Google Assistance can be annoying sometimes to the extent that you want to turn it off completely. Such annoyance includes popping up constantly when you don’t need it, eavesdropping on your conversations, in the background, etc.
In case Google Assistant has grown up to be a disturbance on your phone, you might be looking for ways to disable it. After all, it doesn’t affect the functionality of your device. In this article, you’ll find how to turn off Google Assistant completely, or better still, disable some of its triggers that are annoying to you on your phone.
How to turn off Google Assistance on Android
If you find Google Assistance annoying than being the useful feature it ought to be, we bet you want to do anything to get rid of it on your device. If that’s through, all you need is to follow these simple steps.
- Launch the Google app on your device.
- Click ‘More’ (the 3-dot button) below the screen.
- Select ‘Settings’
- Tap ‘Google Assistant’
- Scroll down a little until you find ‘General’, then tap it.
- From there, hit ‘Google Assistant’ to disable it.
You’ll receive a prompt telling you the features you’ll miss after disabling Google Assistance. Tap ‘TURN OFF’ below it to confirm the action.
Doing so will disable Google Assistance completely from your phone. Long-pressing the home button, clicking the dedicated Assistance button, clicking the buttons on your headphones, or swiping out from the bottom corner won’t activate Google Assistance anymore.
Do you really want to turn off Google Assistance completely?
Yes. Do you really want to? There are levels to the set of people who wants to get rid of Google Assistance on their Android devices. Some people just don’t like the fact that it listens to their conversations in the background, analyses it, and tries to provide answers to questions not meant for her. And that’s when it invokes annoyance!
If you’re in this category, then you might not want to turn off Google Assistance completely. All you need to do is turn off Voice Match for Google Assistance. This will hinder her from eavesdropping on your conversations. Of course, you can still use Google Assistance with your headphones, from your navigation bar, or with the dedicated Google Assistance button on some phones like TECNO POUVOIR 4 and others.
How to turn off Google Assistance Voice Match
To disallow Google Assistance from capturing and analyzing your voice in the background, follow the steps below. This will also disable the ‘OK Google’ and ‘Hello Google’ hot words.
- Launch the ‘Google’ app on your device.
- In the bottom toolbar, tap ‘More’. You’ll find it in the lowest right corner.
- Select ‘Settings’
- Tap ‘Google Assistance’
- Click ‘Voice Match’
- From there, turn off ‘Hey Google’
How to turn off Google Assistance Headphones
Additionally, you might be pissed off when Google Assistance turns on herself automatically when you press the button on your wired or wireless headphones. It gets exasperating sometimes when you want to control your music playback (play, pause, next, previous) with the headphone button and the Assistance is responding instead. In this case, you may need to turn off Google Assistance for headphones instead of turning it off completely.
Here’s how:
- Launch the ‘Google’ app on your device.
- Tap ‘More’ at the lowest right corner.
- Select ‘Settings’
- Tap ‘Google Assistance’
- Scroll down a bit and hit ‘Devices’
- Select your headphones from the list and disable ‘Get help from Google’
How to turn off Google Assistance on Google Home
If you have one of those Google Home smart speakers, chances are that you don’t want it to listen to your voice in the background as well. In that case, you might want to turn it off.
Turning off Google Assistance on your Google Home devices is pretty simple. All you need to do is flip the physical switch at the back of the device to the other side. Doing so will mute the microphone, but you can still use it for other functions asides from accessing the Google Assistant.
