Few things are more annoying than when Siri hijacks your AirPods to read aloud a string of text messages while you’re listening to a hilarious podcast episode or a great song. The feature allows Siri to announce notifications for iMessage, Reminders, and third-party apps (like Slack, Snapchat, Twitter, WhatsApp, and more) through your AirPods, Beats, and CarPlay. You can also reply to alerts hands-free.
In theory, it sounds super useful, but for those who tend to receive a lot of notifications at once (from things like busy group chats or Twitter replies), it can be irritating. While it’s not enabled by default, you might’ve accidentally turned it on via a pop-up while pairing new AirPods (or Beats) or when upgrading to iOS 15. If you have absolutely no idea how to turn it off, we’ve got you covered. If (for some reason) this how-to has actually inspired you to turn the feature on, we’ll walk you through that process too.
Tired enough of Siri that you want some other earbuds? Check out our list of the Best Wireless Headphones and Best Workout Headphones.
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How to Turn Announce Notifications Off
You can turn the feature off using either your iPhone or iPad. The ability to manage Siri announcements is slightly buried within the Settings menu, but you can access it in a few simple steps.
- Open Settings and tap on Notifications.
- Tap on Announce notifications and toggle the feature off.
After that, you’re all set! You no longer have to worry about Siri infiltrating your AirPods with tons of texts, reminders, and any other alerts.
If you don’t want to turn the feature off completely, you can toggle off the Headphones option specifically under Announce When Connected To. Instead, Siri will only announce notifications through CarPlay (if your car supports it). But you can turn off that setting as well. Here’s how:
- Within Announce Notifications tap on CarPlay
- Toggle off Announce Messages
You also have the option to add a tile to the Control Center, allowing you to turn it on and off as you please without having to dig through the Settings menu. You can add the tile by:
- Open Settings and tap Control Center.
- Scroll down to More Controls to Announce Notifications
- Tap on the green plus sign button
