How To Disable Bixby Key on your Samsung Galaxy S9, S8, or Note 8

Samsung’s digital assistant Bixby makes it easy to complete the most common tasks on your phone. Samsung’s goal is to help you complete tasks with your voice that are traditionally done by touch. While Bixby has gotten a lot better since it was first introduced, there is still plenty of room for improvement. One of the biggest complaints, however, is people accidentally opening Bixby by pressing the Bixby Key on the side of the Samsung Galaxy S9, Galaxy S8, Note 8, and Note 9. If you’re not a fan of the artificially intelligent assistant, or would just prefer to use it with just your voice, you may be able to disable the Bixby key.

There are four modes to Bixby: Bixby Home, Bixby Vision, Bixby Voice, and Bixby Reminders. The latter is an app you can access in the App Drawer. You can press and hold the Bixby Key to use Bixby Voice to talk to the assistant. Open the camera and tap the Bixby icon to open Bixby Vision, and swipe to the right on the home screen to open Bixby Home. Home also opens when you press the physical Bixby Key.

For the time being, you can easily disable the Bixby Key, unless you’re the proud owner of a Samsung Galaxy Note 9.

For the time being, you can easily disable the Bixby Key, unless you’re the proud owner of a Samsung Galaxy Note 9. Samsung decided to make the Bixby Key non-negotiable on its newest flagship. We’ve asked Samsung if this was intentional in Bixby 2.0, and if this will be the case on previous Samsung smartphones that receive the update, but the company simply said it hasn’t announced whether other devices will receive Bixby 2.0. If you have a Note 9, the best you can do is disable Bixby Home. Press and hold anywhere on the home screen, swipe to the right to see Bixby Home, and you’ll see a toggle at the top to turn it off.

While most Galaxy owners with the Bixby Key can disable it by following the steps below, there’s no option to remap the button. If you have a Galaxy S9 or S9 Plus, you will be able to disable it simply by going into its settings. Once you have the most recent version of Bixby, swipe right from the home screen to open Bixby and select the gear icon. From there, you should immediately see the toggle to stop Bixby from activating when the button is pressed.

If you miss the virtual assistant after stopping the Bixby Key from working, it’s easy to bring Bixby back either by swiping to the Bixby Home screen, or with your voice. If you set up voice activation, you can also say “Hi Bixby” to open the assistant.