How to Turn Off Siri Suggestions

Siri is not just a voice assistant. It's also the machine-learning-powered algorithm that shows you useful suggestions on your iPhone, such as apps you might want to launch, photo memories you may be interested in, or search results that you may be interested in. Apple says it processes this data on your device using end-to-end encryption. This means that Apple cannot see the suggestions you're receiving. 

Sometimes Siri Suggestions can offer suggestions from resources you may want to keep away from Siri, like dating apps. Apple also says that it may use aggregated information to improve its products and services and share common search terms with search engines to improve their results. If any of these aspects of Siri make you uncomfortable, you can turn off Siri Suggestions. 

To clear Siri Suggestions, you have to follow a bunch of steps. You can start by going to Settings > Siri & Search on your iPhone. Scroll down and disable the following options:

Show Suggestions

Show Recents

Show in Look Up

Show in Spotlight

Allow Notifications

Show in App Library

Show When Sharing

Show When Listening

This will stop Siri from showing suggestions in many places. You can then stop apps from sending information to Siri in the first place. To do this, scroll down on the same settings page, which is Settings > Siri & Search, and tap the name of any app. Now disable every single option here. You can repeat this for all the apps that you want Siri to stop scanning.

You can also stop Siri from accessing your location to personalize suggestions. Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > System Services and turn off Suggestions & Search.

The next step is to turn off Siri Suggestions in Safari. You can do this by going to Settings > Safari on your iPhone, and disabling Safari Suggestions, Search Engine Suggestions, and Preload Top Hit.

Siri Suggestions are synced across your Apple devices, but you can turn off this feature as well. To do this, go to Settings > YOUR NAME > iCloud > See All and turn off Siri.