How to Turn Off Voice Text Messaging on an iPhone

Siri’s voice dictation feature is as straightforward to disable as it is to use.

Image Credit: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Dictating text messages on an iPhone can be extremely convenient, but it costs you some privacy and data consumption. When you enable voice dictation via Siri, you allow Apple to store your verbal commands, messages and contacts on its servers for better speech-to-text efficiency going forward. When you're traveling or without access to Wi-Fi, voice text messaging could incur cellular charges because your iPhone requires the Internet for dictation to work. You can temporarily restrict voice dictation for times such as these or disable it altogether if you work in a sensitive field with special privacy concerns.

Restrict Voice Dictation

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Step 1

Touch "Settings" on your home screen to display the Settings screen.

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Step 2

Tap "General," followed by "Restrictions" and "Enable Restrictions." Next, enter a passcode twice.

Step 3

Toggle the Siri switch to "Off" in the Allow section. The microphone icon automatically disappears from the virtual keyboard, along with the capability to verbally compose or reply to text messages on your iPhone.

Disable Voice Dictation

Step 1

Tap "Settings" on your home screen to display the Settings screen.

Step 2

Touch "General," followed by "Siri" to display the Siri controls.

Step 3

Toggle the "Siri" switch to "Off" and then tap "Disable Siri" to confirm. IPhone disables dictation mode on your iPhone and all your dictation-related data is removed from Apple's servers.