How to Disable Bixby from Your Samsung Galaxy Phone

If you have a Samsung phone that came preloaded with Bixby, you may have mixed feelings about it. Perhaps you like this assistant because of its powerful ability to change your phone’s settings and control your apps. Yet, you get annoyed by how easy it is to accidentally launch the app when you are trying to do something else. If your annoyance over unintended Bixby launches outweighs the benefits for you, read on to find out how to disable it.

The Bixby button is directly under the volume button, making it easy to press while trying to lower the volume. This location is the main reason people want to disable Bixby. Unfortunately, the physical button that controls Bixby isn’t going anywhere. (And you can’t use it for anything else, but you can disable the software and render the button useless.)

Samsung is trying to make Bixby a staple app for Samsung users, so they don’t want to make it easy to disable it, but we have the steps for you to make it happen. There is no one-stop solution to disabling it, and there’s a hoop or two to jump through. But even though there are several different places you need to change some settings, those settings are quick and easy changes.

Log in to your Samsung Account

Here’s one hoop. To disable Bixby, you need to sign in to your Samsung account, if you didn’t do that when you set up your device. They want you to think twice about removing it.

Here’s how to sign in.

1. Press the Bixby button or swipe right on your phone’s home screen.

2. Tap “Next.”

3. Choose your Bixby Voice language and tap Next.

4. Select “Sign in.”

5. Enter your Samsung account information or create an account if you don’t already have one.

Bixby Voice

The Bixby assistant has two distinct parts: Bixby Home and Bixby Voice.

The Voice feature lets you get stuff done on Bixby by pressing and holding the Bixby button like a walkie-talkie. Because you need to access Home to turn off Voice, you have to turn off Voice before you can disable Bixby Home.

How to turn off Bixby Voice:

1. Press the Bixby button or swipe right on your phone’s home screen until Bixby opens.

2. On the menu at the top, tap the menu icon (three vertical dots).

3. Tap Settings.

4. Uncheck Bixby Voice.

Bixby Home Button

To remove the risk of opening the app when attempting to lower the volume on your phone, you now need to deactivate the launch of Bixby when you touch the button once.

How to deactivate the Bixby Home Button:

1. Press the Bixby button on the side of the phone.

2. From the menu at the top, press the Settings button. It looks like a gear.

3. Uncheck the Bixby key.

Bixby Home on the Home Screen

Whenever you swipe to the far left of your home screen, the Bixby app will open. Removing this screen from your phone is pretty easy.

If you don’t want to eradicate Bixby and just want to deactivate that button, skip this next step. If you leave this screen active, you will still be able to access Bixby with your voice or by swiping to the far-left screen. However, if you want the app completely disabled, follow these instructions.

To remove Bixby Home:

1. From the home screen press and hold on an empty space. The displays will reduce in size, and you will be able to scroll between them.

2. Swipe right to move the scroll all the way to the left.

3. Click to disable Bixby Home. The screen will no longer appear on your phone when you swipe.

Change Bixby Launch on Galaxy Note 9

Here’s the other hoop to jump through if you are a Galaxy Note 9 owner. Unfortunately, Samsung does not allow users of the Galaxy Note 9 to disable the Bixby button completely, but they have created a way to avoid accidentally launching the program. You can change the launch action to a double-tap of the button instead of only a single tap. Now if you bump the button once, it will not open Bixby

To complete this fix, you must have version 2.0.36.14 or later.

1. Press the Bixby Button.

2. On the menu at the top, press the menu icon (three dots stacked vertically.)

3. Tap Settings.

4. Choose the option for Bixby Key.

5. Change the setting to require you to press twice to open Bixby.

There are other ways to avoid the Bixby app, including using apps designed to disable it or selecting a different launcher app such as Action Launcher or Nova Launcher.

If you decide you want to give Bixby a second chance, you can get any or all parts of it back by repeating the steps above and turning on the toggles again.

Image credit: Samsung Galaxy S8