To turn off the Emergency SOS feature on your iPhone, follow these steps:
- Open Settings on your iPhone.
- Scroll down and tap Emergency SOS.
- Toggle off the options:
- Call with Hold and Release (disables calling emergency services by holding the side and volume buttons)
- Call with 5 Button Presses (disables calling emergency services by pressing the side button five times)
- If you have an iPhone 14 or later, also toggle off Call After Severe Crash to disable automatic calls after a crash
Note that even after turning these off, you can still initiate Emergency SOS manually from the power-off screen by holding the side button and a volume button simultaneously and swiping the Emergency Call slider
. If your iPhone is showing "SOS Only" at the top of the screen, this means it is not connected to your regular cellular network but can still make emergency calls. To fix this:
- Toggle Airplane Mode on and off to refresh the network connection.
- Restart your iPhone.
- Remove and reinsert your SIM card.
- Reset network settings via Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset Network Settings (note this will erase saved Wi-Fi passwords).
- Update your iPhone and carrier settings.
- Move to an area with better cellular coverage
These steps address both disabling Emergency SOS triggers and resolving the "SOS Only" network status on iPhone.
