iPhone and iPad users can disable Siri altogether and delete its data, or disable its features and hide it from the search, Spotlight, and share menu.
While many find Siri useful, others may want to disable some of its features or the assistant altogether. Luckily, Apple lets its customers modify Siri settings as much as they want, including disabling Siri integration with the system, from making recommendations, or from the share menu. Siri is available for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac, in addition to Apple TV and HomePod devices.
Siri has been part of the Apple ecosystem since the iPhone 4s. In fact, the ‘s’ in the device name is understood to stand for Siri. The assistant can be quickly summoned and used by saying ‘Hey Siri’ and then asking a question. While Siri isn’t the most intelligent virtual assistant when compared to Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa, Apple places a greater focus on user privacy and doesn’t use the data to train Siri. In spite of this emphasis on privavy, an iOS 15 bug did allow iPhones to record Siri conversations.
iPhone and iPad users can easily deactivate Siri or altogether disable it by opening the Settings app, navigating to ‘Siri & Search,’ and then disabling the first three ‘Ask Siri’ options. After this is done, a pop-up window will appear asking if the user wants to turn off Siri. If accepted, Siri will be completely disabled across the system.
Turn Off Siri Features On IPhone Or IPad
Instead of disabling Siri, users can disable specific features. If using Siri regularly and annoyed by one or more of its built-in features, switching them off will be the best option. For example, users can disable Siri commands for specific apps by navigating to ‘Siri & Search,’ scrolling to the bottom, and unchecking the apps they don’t want Siri activated for. It is also possible to prevent Siri from searching photos during a “Spotlight search” by navigating to the Photos app settings, then ‘Siri & Search,’ and choosing to hide the app and contents in the search results.
Users can also prevent Siri from showing recommendations in the search results or ‘Spotlight.’ To do this, open the ‘Siri & Search‘ menu and then turn off ‘Show in Look Up’ and ‘Show in Spotlight.’ To hide Siri from the share menu, simply disable the ‘Show When Sharing’ option on the same settings page. It’s worth noting that users can also delete their voice command history through the ‘Siri & Dictation History’ option available on the same page. Finally, if wanting to disable Siri completely, it might also be worth deleting Siri’s data from the cloud. This can be done by opening the Settings app, tapping photos to access the ‘iCloud’ options, and then tapping on the ‘Manage Storage’ menu. From here, scroll down and tap on Siri to completely delete the data.
