How to silence Galaxy S7 and S7 edge?

From time to time, you may want to silence Galaxy S7 or S7 edge, for example, when you are in library or during an important meeting.

This guide tries to help you understand how to silence Galaxy S7 and S7 edge in different scenarios and different ways.

Please note, there are 5 types of sound in Galaxy S7 and S7 edge:

• Ringtone;
• Notifications (notification tone);
• Media;
• System (alerts);
• Alarm.

So, when you try to silence Galaxy S7 or S7 edge, you need to know which are to be silenced, and which are not.

How to silence ringtone in Galaxy S7 and S7 edge?

If you do not want the phone to ring, you can silence Galaxy S7 ringtone with any of the following methods:

• Put Galaxy S7 or S7 edge in mute mode (silent mode) or vibrate mode.
• Turn on Do not Disturb.
• Set ringtone as Silent.

Method 1: Use mute mode or vibrate mode to silence Galaxy S7 ringtone.

You can put Galaxy S7 or S7 edge in mute mode (silent mode) or vibrate mode using Galaxy S7 quick setting buttons as shown below.

You can tap the icon to cycle through the 3 sound modes:

• Sound mode.
• Vibrate mode. No ringtones, no notifications tones and no system tones. But the phone may vibrate depending on your settings.
• Mute mode. No sound, and no vibration for ringtone, notification tone and system tones.

You can also set sound mode in Settings—Sounds and vibration—Sound mode.

If you want to quickly enter vibrate mode, you can hold volume down button until phone vibrates.

You can also use on-screen volume settings by tapping volume down (or volume up) button to set volume for ringtones, notification tones, media and system sound individually.

As shown below, when you drag the volume slider to the leftmost side, it will automatically enter vibrate mode for ringtone and notification tones.

You can also access Galaxy S7 volume settings in Settings— Sound and vibration — Volume.

Method 2: use Do not Disturb (DnD) to silence Galaxy S7 ringtone

Do not Disturb is an Android feature since Android Lollipop.  It was further polished in Android Marshmallow.

You may refer to this guide on detailed usages of Do not Disturb in Android Marshmallow.

However, in Galaxy S7, Do not Disturb was implemented in a slightly different way.

In Settings— Do not disturb as shown below, you can enable it at any time by tapping Turn on now.

In addition, you can turn on Do not Disturb at scheduled time and days. Unfortunately, Galaxy S7 and S7 edge only allow one schedule.

By default, in Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, Do not disturb only allows alarms to bypass it.

But you can customize the rules by tapping Custom as shown below.

Now, you can customize the exceptions.

For example, you can allow certain contacts to ring you. You can also add notification reminder as an exception.

The most useful feature is that you can set priority app notifications.

Notifications from these apps can bug you in Do not Disturb mode. Of course you should choose only important apps.

To add an app to priority app notifications, you can tap Priority app notifications as shown above. Then select the app.

Method 3:  use silent ringtone to silence Galaxy S7 ringtone

You can set default ringtone as Silent in Settings-– Sounds and vibration – Ringtone.

Please note, if you customized ringtone for some special contacts, the default ringtone will not apply to them.

How to mute Galaxy S7 ringtone quickly?

If you want to mute Galaxy S7 ringtone and you do not (or cannot) answer the call, you can

• Use Easy Mute.
• Use Power button to reject call.
• Use Home button to accept call, then mute or hold

These methods are useful when you forget to set the sound mode to vibrate or mute mode, or forget to turn on Do not Disturb on Galaxy S7 or S7 edge.

Method 1: Use easy mute to mute Galaxy S7 ringtone

You can quickly mute Galaxy S7 ringtone by placing your hand over the screen, or turning over  (so that the screen is facing downwards) the phone.

In this way, the caller still get the connecting tone and you can pick up the call at any time before the caller hangs up.

By default, the Easy Mute is not turned on.

To turn on this feature, you  can go to Settings—Advanced features as shown below.

Tap Easy mute as shown below.

In Easy mute page, as shown below, tap the on button to turn it on.

Method 2: Use power button to mute Galaxy S7 ringtone

Another way to quickly mute Galaxy S7 ringtone is to reject the call by pressing the Power button.

Again, by default, using power button to reject a call in Galaxy S7 is NOT turned on.

You need to turn on (enable) it.

In Galaxy S7 Settings — Applications page, you can find some Samsung apps as shown below.

Tap Phone as shown below.

This should open a call settings page as shown below.

Tap Answering and ending calls.

Now, you get 3 entries:

1. Answer calls by pressing Home key.
2. Automatically answer calls when a headset or a Bluetooth device is connected.
3. End calls by pressing Power key.

You can enable the first and the third one as shown below.

Please note, call settings can also be accessed from Phone app.

As shown above, in Phone app, tap More button, then tap Settings to get an identical call settings page.

Method 3: Use Home button to accept call, then mute or hold

As mentioned above, when the phone rings, you can press Home button to accept the call.  This will surely stop the ringtone.

You can mute the call or end the call then.

If your carrier supports, you can also hold the call until you are convenient to talk.

How to silence notification tone in Galaxy S7 and S7 edge?

You can silence Galaxy S7 notification tones in many ways, for example,

• Put Galaxy S7 or S7 edge in silence mode (mute mode) or vibrate mode, as mentioned above.
• Turn on Do not Disturb as mentioned above.
• Set default notification tone as Silent as mentioned above for ringtone..

In addition, you can also disable notifications for some apps.

Please refer to this guide on how to manage (including disable) app notifications in Marshmallow.

How to silence media in Galaxy S7 and S7 edge?

Sound modes (sound, vibrate and mute) do NOT affect media playing.

In other words, you can still playing music or movies when in vibrate or mute mode.

To mute media playing in Galaxy S7 or S7 edge, you can use volume down button when playing media.

Please note, Easy Mute discussed above is NOT for media. It only works for ringtone and notification tone.

In addition, media sound is NOT affected by Do not Disturb settings.

How to mute system sound in Galaxy S7 and S7 edge?

You can mute Galaxy S7 system alert sound in vibrate or mute mode.

System sound is also silenced automatically when Do not Disturb is enabled.

Of course, you can always use volume settings to set volume for system sound.

How to silence alarms in Galaxy S7 and S7 edge?

By default, alarm sound is NOT affected by the volume button. You can set volume (together with alarm tone) for individual alarms in Clock app.

You need dismiss or snooze the alarm to silence the alarm if the alarm rings.

By default, alarm is added as an exception in Do not Disturb settings as shown above. You can change this if you want to silence alarms in Galaxy S7 or S7 edge when in Do not Disturb mode.

Do you know how to silence Galaxy S7 and S7 edge?

If you have any questions on silencing Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, please let us know in the comment box below.

The community will try to help you.

You can get the official Samsung Galaxy S7 user manual (user guide) in your local language here, and Galaxy S7 edge user manual (user guide) in your local language here.

For other guides on using Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge, please check Galaxy S7 online manual page.

For detailed Galaxy S7 how-to guides, please check Galaxy S7 how-to guides page.

You can also read Galaxy S7 camera guides here.