Skip to main content

How to turn off AMBER alerts and other emergency alerts on iPhone and Android

The Amber Alert feature on Instagram.
Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

The AMBER Alert system is an excellent tool for finding and recovering children abducted in your area. According to the U.S. government, this system has helped recover 1,029 children throughout all participating regions – 87 through Wireless Emergency Alerts alone.

The AMBER alert system is one of our best resources for reporting and recovering abducted children. As of December 2023, the U.S. government reports that 1,186 children were rescued because of the AMBER program, which launched back in 1996. Fortunately, our go-to mobile devices and wearables have AMBER alerts and other emergency notifications automatically configured, so the populace is promptly alerted when a child is reported missing.

Recommended Videos

Difficulty

Easy

Duration

5 minutes

What You Need

  • An iPhone

  • An Android phone

AMBER and emergency notifications are pretty loud, though, and can occur at any moment of the day. If you’d like to disable these alerts, we’ll teach you how to do so for both iPhone and Android devices.

How to turn off AMBER alerts on iPhone

AMBER alerts are categorized as Government Alerts alongside Emergency Alerts and Public Safety Alerts. Provided you have a modern iPhone (like the iPhone 15), and your carrier is AT&T, T-Mobile, or Verizon, you should be able to toggle all three on and off.

Step 1: Tap to open the Settings app.

Step 2: Tap Notifications.

Step 3: Scroll down and tap the toggle next to AMBER Alerts listed under Government Alerts. Repeat this step to re-enable this feature later as needed or to toggle off the other two alerts.

How to turn off AMBER alerts on Android

You can find the AMBER Alert's interface on Android 12 and 13 devices under the new emergency safety sub-menu available on modern Android devices.

Step 1: Find and open the Settings app on your phone.

Step 2: Scroll down to the Safety and Emergency sub-menu

Step 3: Once there, navigate to Wireless Emergency Alerts.

Step 4: From then on, you'd be able to toggle AMBER alerts off, if you so please.

Repeat this step to re-enable this feature later as needed or to toggle off the other alerts.

What are AMBER alerts?

Though it's easy to want to be rid of annoying alerts and needless notifications, sometimes it pays to pay attention to what notifications are being disabled and why they're enabled to begin with. AMBER alerts short for America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response, are alerts issued by the U.S. Government to draw attention to either a missing person in an area, an extreme weather event, or other miscellaneous emergencies.

Though disabling these features may help ease notification fatigue, you're also able to see information about topics that would typically be the subject of AMBER alerts on Google, Bing, or even Facebook.

One thing to note! Even if you disable AMBER alerts, you'll still receive other emergency alerts on your phone (like the national test the FCC and FEMA conducted on October 4, 2023). To disable these types of alerts, you'll need to turn off Government Alerts.

On the iPhone, you can find this by going to the Settings app, Notifications, and then disabling the toggle next to Government Alerts. On your Android phone, search for Wireless emergency alerts in the Settings app and disable the main Allow alerts toggle.

You should almost certainly always keep emergency alerts enabled, but if — for some reason — you want or need to disable them, this should have you covered.

Kyree Leary
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kyree is an Atlanta-based freelance writer who spends a lot of his time writing about video games and all kinds of tech…
Apple could be forced to make major changes to how your iPhone works
The back of the Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Apple is facing yet another landmark push in Europe that could open some of the signature features of its ecosystem. The European Commission has today detailed a couple of broad interoperability measures that Apple must follow, in order to oblige with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) guidelines.
These measures cover a total of nine connectivity features available on iPhones, covering everything from smartwatches to headphones. The idea is to give developers access to the same set of advanced features — such as immersive notifications on watches and quick pairing for peripherals — that is locked to Apple’s own devices.
“The specification decisions are legally binding,” says the regulatory body, adding that interoperability is “key to opening up new possibilities for third parties to develop innovative products and services on Apple's gatekeeper platforms.”

Hello, AirDrop alternatives!

Read more
EU iPhone users are getting another exclusive perk with iOS 18.4
Installing iOS 18.3 update on an iPhone 16 Pro.

The iOS 18.4 update is in beta right now, and it introduces a new option for users in the EU to set a default navigation app. This means no more pesky links opening in Apple Maps when you only use Google Maps -- but it won't be available for people in the U.S.

The EU's Digital Markets Act is forcing Apple to make various changes to its services, but unfortunately not all of these perks make it over to the U.S. Apple has made it clear that it doesn't agree with a lot of the rules the EU is setting, so a lot of the time, it only makes the changes when and where it absolutely has to.

Read more
Apple’s forcing your iPhone to turn Apple Intelligence on again
Apple Intelligence & Siri screen on an iPhone 16 Pro

If you had previously disabled Apple Intelligence,  you might want to double-check your settings. The latest iOS update looks to have re-enabled the service for many users, just like previous updates — a bug that has bothered Apple users since it began.

Disabling Apple Intelligence can clear up as much as 7GB of data on your iPhone, and for users with less storage capacity, that's nothing to scoff at. Suddenly losing that much storage to an optional feature is an annoyance, but you can disable it again. You just have to repeat the process in your settings.

Read more