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

Kyree Leary
Kevin Parrish
Michael Allison
By , and

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.

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Difficulty

Easy

Duration

5 minutes

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However, these alerts will blast across mobile devices — phones, tablets, smartwatches — at any time, even when you’re asleep. You can toggle these AMBER alerts off, but that will limit your ability to help authorities recover these abducted innocents. This guide shows you how to turn off AMBER and other emergency alerts (except for Presidential alerts) on your 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 14) 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.

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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.

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Kyree Leary
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…
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