How to disable Bixby on your Samsung Galaxy phone in 2023

One feature you’re guaranteed to find on Samsung Galaxy phones is Bixby, its in-house AI assistant. Bixby isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, though, so you might have difficulty genuinely enjoying your new Galaxy handset if you aren’t a fan. Lucky for you, after following just a few quick steps, you can disable Bixby altogether on your Samsung Galaxy phone.

How to disable the Bixby button on Galaxy S23, S22, S21, S20, Note 10, and Note 20 phones

The Bixby button is placed right below the volume keys on the right side of Samsung’s Galaxy S23, S22, S21, S20, and Note 20 phones and on the left side of the Note 10 phones. It’s also the power button for those phones. Bixby is activated by long-pressing on that button, but you may just want it to be your power button. Here’s how to disable Bixby altogether on that button.

How to disable the Bixby button:

1. Swipe down on the screen to bring up the notifications menu, and then tap on the power icon on the top right side of the screen.
2. You should see the power menu pop up on the screen, along with the Side Key settings selection. Tap on it to continue.
3. You should see the settings, which include the Press and Hold options. There’s a Wake Bixby setting that’s on by default, but you can tap on the Power off menu selection instead to disable Bixby.

That’s it! Now you can press the side button to your heart’s content, and it won’t activate Bixby. Feels good, doesn’t it?

How to disable the Bixby button (sort of) on older Galaxy phones

If you own a Galaxy phone older than the S20 or Note 10 with Bixby installed, here’s how to require a double press to activate Bixby on those handsets. It doesn’t disable Bixby altogether, but it’s better than nothing. Samsung did allow users to disable Bixby on those phones at one point, but a software update has since eliminated that feature.

How to edit the side button on older Galaxy phones:

1. Open the Settings.
2. Scroll down and tap on the Advanced Features selection.
3. Tap on the Bixby key option.
4. Finally, tap on the Double Press to open Bixby selection.
5. You can also pick what a single press does.

How to disable the “Hi, Bixby” wake word

For most people, Bixby Voice is probably the most useful Bixby feature. It’s an easy way to ask your phone a simple question without first unlocking your phone. Some people aren’t big fans of Bixby Voice — Google Assistant is much more helpful in specific scenarios — and luckily, there’s an easy way to disable it.

How to disable “Hi, Bixby”:

1. Open the Bixby app.
2. Tap the three-dot menu button.
3. Go into Settings.
4. Tap on the Voice wake-up option.
5. Toggle the feature off.

Just sign out of your Samsung account!

You can ignore this section if you happen to take advantage of your Samsung account in any way. If, like me, you don’t really use Samsung’s dedicated services, simply removing your Samsung account also stops Bixby from working! This simple solution will save you the headaches of finding specific settings and going through more complex processes.

How to disable Bixby altogether:

1. Go into the Settings app.
2. Tap on your name/email at the top.
3. Scroll down to the button and tap on Sign out.
4. Confirm by hitting Sign out again.

How to disable Samsung Free

It’s hard to find a good reason to use Samsung Free (which replaced Bixby Home and Samsung Daily). Samsung Free is the vertically scrolling list of content that lives on your left-most home screen. It’s the list of content that shows you “useful” things. The problem is most things it offers aren’t that great. If you agree with us, here’s how to get rid of it!

How to get rid of Samsung Free:

1. Long-press on an empty area (somewhere with no icons or widgets) on your Galaxy phone home screen to access your home screen settings. You can also pinch inwards with two fingers to get to this screen.
2. Swipe over to the left-most home screen, where you’ll find Samsung Free.
3. Tap the toggle at the top of the screen to disable Samsung Free.

To re-enable Samsung Free, perform steps one and two again, then toggle the same Samsung Free option on.

Why is Bixby so bad?

Bixby has come a long way since its inception. The introduction of Bixby 2.0 in 2017 improved general conversational language recognition. Bixby 3.0 improved it further in 2021. Despite all the efforts, though, Samsung has lagged compared to the competition.

Google Assistant is still much better at correctly finding general information and nailing questions. It is, after all, made by the company behind the most important search engine. Even Alexa is better at conversational language, and has much broader support from developers. Even Siri might be better.

During our testing, we found that it was great at controlling your device, turning off Wi-Fi, etc. It seems to struggle with context, though. For example, asking two related questions in a row will result in very different answers. Not only that, but the few things Bixby does well, the competition is also great at. This means most of us have no valid reason to stick with Bixby, other than the fact that it comes enabled by default.

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