With Google Assistant, you can use voice commands to perform certain hands-free actions on your Google Pixel 6a. If you would rather disable this feature on your smartphone, then you can take a look at this article from Seeking Tech.
While you can’t completely disable Google Assistant on your 6a phone, you should be able to turn off the ability to activate this feature.
The following steps are based on the Android 12 operating system. If you are using a newer OS, then the directions may end up being different if there are any new changes made to the system menus.
1. To start off, we recommend that you change the function of pressing and holding the Google Pixel 6a power button. By default, this action will activate Google Assistant.
To find out how you can change this function to open the power menu instead, you can take a look at this tutorial.
2. You should also turn off the Hey Google activation feature. In order to do so, you need to take the following steps:
- Turn on your Google phone if you haven’t done so already.
- Open the Settings App of the Pixel 6a. If you have a hard time locating Settings, then you can swipe downward from the top of the screen two times in order to open the expanded Quick Settings menu. From there, tap the gear icon to head into Settings.
- Once you have launched the Settings App, scroll down and then select Google from the list of available options.
- In the Google menu, select the “Settings for Google app” option located at the bottom.
- Inside the Settings for Google Apps menu, you then need to select the “Search, Assistant and Voice” option.
- You then need to select Google Assistant in the next screen.
- Afterwards, select Hey Google and Voice Match.
- After you get to the Hey Google and Voice Match menu, make sure that the Hey Google setting is disabled in the This Device section.
3. You should also make sure that you disable the Hey Google activation feature on the lock screen. For the uninformed, the lock screen of the Pixel 6a will appear when you turn on the screen but don’t unlock your phone.
To turn off the Hey Google activation feature on the lock screen, you need to do the following:
- Open the Settings App on your Pixel smartphone.
- From Settings, you need to scroll down and then tap Google.
- After getting to the Google menu, you then need to tap “Settings for Google app.”
- Afterwards, tap the “Search, Assistant and Voice” option.
- You then need to tap Google Assistant.
- In the next screen, tap Lock Screen.
- Inside of the Lock Screen menu, make sure that the “Assistant responses on lock screen” setting is turned off.
By changing the function when pressing and holding the power button to open the power menu, as well as disabling the Hey Google voice activation, you should be able to avoid triggering the Google Assistant feature to appear.