How to make custom vibrations for contacts on Android

Custom ringtones might have been all the rage a decade or two ago, but many of us don’t even let our phones make sounds anymore. My device and those of most of my friends are permanently in silent mode to avoid distracting noise. If you’re the same, you can still assign custom vibrate patterns to certain contacts so that you’ll know who’s calling just from the way your phone buzzes in your pocket. Here’s our quick guide on how to make custom vibrations for contacts on Android.

Editors note: A Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus was used to demonstrate the steps in this guide. The process will be very similar on most Android phones, although the exact menu names and locations may be slightly different.

How to change the vibration patterns on Android

Before you start assigning custom vibration patterns to contacts, you’ll need to set and know what your standard one is. Otherwise, you might be unable to differentiate it from the custom ones. It makes sense to have your standard vibration pattern as something basic, but it’s entirely up to you. Here’s how you can check.

1. In your device’s Settings menu, go to Sounds and vibration.
2. Tap on Call vibration.
3. Choose a standard vibration from the list. On Galaxy phones, the first three options (short, medium, and basic call) are good to use because they’re simple and unlikely to get confused with any of the custom ones you might set.

How to make custom vibrations for contacts on Android

Now that you have your baseline vibration, it’s time to make separate ones for your mom, your partner, your boss, and anyone else whose call you want to be particularly alerted to. Here are the steps to make custom vibrations for contacts on Android.

1. Go to the Phone app on your device.
2. Select the Contacts tab at the bottom of the screen.
3. Tap on the contact for which you want to set a custom vibration (I still have a fake contact called ‘Aaaaaa’ from my pocket-dialing days.)
4. From the options that appear below the contact, hit the information button, represented by a gray letter ‘i’ in a small white circle and a larger gray circle.

5. On the contact card, hit More in the bottom-right corner, with three dots above it.
6. Select Change ringtone/vibration.
7. Tap on Call vibration.
8. Now select a new vibration pattern for the contact.

If you have already chosen a basic vibration for your standard calls, it makes sense to pick a more complex one for each contact to make them easily distinguishable in your pocket. I’ve gone for ‘off-beat’ in the example above.