How Do I Prevent Butt-Dials?

Various settings and options can reduce your chances of making an accidental call

Edward C. Baig,

AARP

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Published March 31, 2026

Key takeaways

Pocket-dialing can happen even on locked phones due to motion, gestures or certain settings.
Short auto-lock times, strong security and fewer “wake” features reduce mishaps.
Turning off the Raise to Wake and Extend Unlock features reduces the risk of accidental calls.

AARP members and readers are invited to submit pressing technology questions they’d like me to tackle in my Tech Guru column, including issues around devices, security, social media and how all the puzzle pieces fit together. This week’s question, which sadly many of us can relate to, concerns ways to stop calling people by mistake.

I tend to accidentally dial people from time to time, which surprises me because I lock my phone. Can you explain why this may be occurring and what I can do to prevent it?

Few things are more embarrassing than inadvertently pocket-dialing someone, especially if this butt-dial, as it has unflatteringly come to be known, wakes up your boss, grandparents or a friend in the wee hours. With any luck, the people receiving those “didn’t-mean-it” calls are an understanding bunch.

And yes, I’ve done more butt-dialing through the years than I’d like to admit.

There’s no reason any of us should feel rotten. Pocket-dialing is common enough that the leading Android phone maker, Samsung, even devoted a webpage to how to prevent it.

Here are some strategies that may help.

Lock the device

This may be the most obvious piece of advice (and something you said you already do), but not everyone does. Lock the phone, usually by pressing the power button, before putting the device in your pocket or purse.

Set up security

This also should go without saying: Create a personal identification number (PIN), ▶password◀, passcode or pattern recognition, or use whatever fingerprint or facial recognition biometric solution your phone has available, so that no one can get past your lock screen without having or knowing those credentials. The main purpose is to protect your privacy and data, but it may also minimize, though not completely prevent, butt-dials.

Shorten how soon the phone automatically locks

Ask the Tech Guru

You can set up a phone to automatically lock itself after it has been inactive for a while or the screen goes dark. The shorter the interval, the better.

On iPhone, go to Settings | Display & Brightness | Auto-Lock and choose the time interval after which the device will lock. You can select 30 seconds or 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 minutes. While you’d be defeating the purpose of protecting yourself from butt-dials, and I wouldn’t recommend it, you could also choose to never have the phone lock itself automatically.  

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Android phones are all a little different. On a Samsung Galaxy, head to Settings | Lock screen and AOD | Secure lock settings. You’ll have to enter your PIN at this point. Tap Auto lock when screen turns off. You can have it auto-lock immediately, or after 5, 15 or 30 seconds, or after 1, 2, 5, 10 or 30 minutes.

Even with auto lock enabled, there may be circumstances where you want to override that preference: thus an Android feature known as Extend Unlock (formerly Smart Lock). It senses when you’re holding the phone, are in or near your home or another trusted place, or when your smartwatch or another trusted Bluetooth device is nearby. To enable this, go to Settings | Lock screen and AOD | Extend Unlock and enter your passcode.

As you might imagine, though, if Extend Unlock is activated, it increases the chances of a butt-dial.

With that in mind, if you want the convenience of keeping the phone unlocked when you’re home, say, but don’t want it to make those inadvertent calls, tap the On-body detection option within Extend Unlock to make sure it is off. That way the phone won’t remain unlocked when it is in your pocket.

Quick cautionary note: On-body detection cannot distinguish you from someone else who takes your device when it is unlocked. It means that the other person will be able to access it.

You can also block accidental touches when the screen is in a dark place, including your pocket or purse. Head back to Settings | Display, then scroll down to Accidental touch protection. If not already enabled, tap the switch to turn it blue.

Disable Raise to Wake

Many phones have a Raise to Wake feature or variation that works just like it sounds: It “wakes” the phone when you raise it or when movement is detected. But even if you don’t actively raise it, this feature may inadvertently result in, yes, a pocket-dial.

On iPhone, go to Settings | Display & Brightness | Raise to Wake. Tap the switch to turn it from green (on) to gray (off).

A similar feature you should consider disabling on Galaxy is called Lift to wake. Go to Settings | Advanced features | Motion and gestures | Lift to wake.

Turn off certain other gestures

If you have an iPhone without a Home button, you probably wake it by swiping up from the bottom edge of the lock screen. That doesn’t have to be automatic. Go to Settings | Accessibility | Touch | Tap or Swipe to Wake. Tap the switch to make it gray. When disabled, you will have to press the power button before you can swipe up to get past the lock screen, another kind of pocket-dial protection.

On Samsung phones, double-tapping can turn on the device. Disable the option at Settings | Advanced features | Motions and gestures | Double tap to turn on screen.

Bonus tip: A difficult new puzzle from Wordle’s creator

I usually begin my day by tackling Wordle, the addictive word puzzle from The New York Times.

Wordle creator Josh Wardle is behind a brand-new game called Parseword, and while not the easiest to explain, much less master, I recommend checking it out for yourself.

The puzzles in Parseword combine cryptic clues and wordplay, or what’s been described as “cryptic crosswords.”

To take a wordplay example used in the tutorial, you have three words side-by-side-by-side: “teen,” “trimmed” and “shirt.” Using “trimmed” as a clue to trim the “n” after teen, it becomes “tee.” Combine that word with “shirt,” and you have the puzzle’s solution: “tee shirt.”

Synonyms are also used in puzzles, as in this example. The words next to each other are “advance,” “basketball” and “position.” You’re also given a clue to choose a 7-letter solution. If you combine “basketball” with “position,” the game shows you “forward” and “guard” as possible ways to proceed. Since you know “forward” has 7 letters, it is the correct choice. And “forward” is a synonym for “advance.”

There’s an iOS app with an Android version on the way, and you can play on the web at Parseword.com. In my limited experience, solving a Parseword takes longer than solving a Wordle. So if you’re like me, you may want to start your day a little bit earlier.

The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.

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Edward C. Baig covers technology and other consumer topics. He previously worked for USA Today, BusinessWeek, U.S. News & World Report and Fortune, and is author of Macs for Dummies and coauthor of iPhone for Dummies and iPad for Dummies. Follow him on LinkedIn; Threads; and X, formerly known as Twitter.