The Android Feature That'll Let You Silence A Call With The Flick Of A Wrist

No matter how advanced privacy measures become, we just can't seem to completely eliminate the scourge of spam calls from this world. All phone owners know how annoying it is to be constantly beset by obnoxious phone bots, but as long as you're sitting at your desk, you can usually just swipe the call notification down to screen it.

What are you supposed to do, however, if you're not at your desk, and can't reach the screen with your finger? If you're in a situation where your phone isn't on a flat surface and you only have one hand free, it suddenly becomes much more difficult to silence irritating calls. Luckily, if you're using an Android phone, there is a little secret feature you can use to create an additional means of screening annoying robots. All it takes is one flipped setting and a quick flick of the wrist, and the robots are banished.

If you're using an Android phone loaded with the default Phone app, then you can enable a special feature to instantly silence a call by flipping your phone. The feature, aptly named Flip to Silence, can be found in the phone app settings, slightly out of the way.

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1. Open the Phone app.

2. Tap the three dots on the top-right of the screen to open the options.

3. Tap Settings.

4. Scroll down to the bottom of the Settings menu and tap Flip to Silence.

5. Enable the Flip to Silence toggle.

When Flip to Silence is enabled, you can immediately silence any incoming call by placing your phone screen-down on a flat (or mostly flat) surface, kind of like placing an old landline phone on its receiver. Even if you don't have a surface handy, just quickly flip your phone downwards, and it should have the same effect. Just don't flip it too hard!

Flip to Silence is an available feature on the default Phone app, which comes preloaded with most generic Android phones. Other Android phones of a different constitution, such as a Google Pixel, may call the feature something else like "Flip to Shhh," but it's the same in execution, and can be found through the same Settings path.

In the event you're not using the default Phone app, it's still possible to enable quick silencing on your Android phone. You just need to do it through your general system settings rather than your Phone app settings.

Daniel Trock/SlashGear

1. Open your Settings app.

2. Scroll down and tap Gestures.

3. Scroll down and tap Flip for DND.

4. Enable the Use Flip for DND toggle.

This will enable the flipping function universally, no matter what kind of phone app you're using. Incidentally, different Android versions and phones may have this toggle in a slightly different place -– just search the word "flip" in your Settings search bar, and it should be the first result.