How-To

How to Unlock Your iPhone with Your Voice

By Brian Burgess

Published September 23, 2022

There are many ways to unlock your iPhone. But did you know you can use your voice? Here’s how to unlock your iPhone with your voice.

There are several ways to unlock your iPhone based on your model. For example, you can use Face ID, a passcode, and your thumbprint on older models. You can even unlock it using an Apple Watch.

However, did you know you can unlock your iPhone with your voice? This lesser-known trick uses your phone’s accessibility settings. Once you enable the feature, you can open your iPhone by speaking to it.

If you would like to unlock your iPhone with your voice, follow the steps below.

How to Unlock Your iPhone with Your Voice

It’s important to note that your iPhone needs to run iOS 14.6 or above, which most supported phones should have. You may also need to disable the Face ID feature if you use it.

Otherwise, your iPhone could log in before you have a chance to talk to it. In this example, an iPhone 11 with iOS 15.6.1 was used, so this wasn’t a problem.

To set up your iPhone to unlock with your voice:

1. Tap the Settings icon from your home screen.
2. Scroll down and tap the Accessibility option from the list of settings.
3. Scroll down the screen and tap Voice Control from the list.
4. On the following screen, tap the Set Up Voice Control option.
5. When the Voice Control permissions screen appears, tap the Continue button at the bottom.
6. A list of things you can say will appear. Go through it at your leisure, as there are some interesting voice controls you can use.
7. When you’re ready, tap the Done button.
8. You’ll know the Voice Control feature is enabled when you see the blue microphone icon at the top-right corner.

Using Voice Control to Unlock Your iPhone

Now that you have the Voice Control accessibility feature enabled, you can use your voice to unlock your iPhone.

To unlock your iPhone with your voice:

1. With your iPhone locked, use the “Go home” voice gesture to unlock it and enter a passcode or use Touch ID if necessary.
2. You’ll see a message telling you what it’s doing when it locks or unlocks.
3. Another tip worth noting is you can use your voice to lock the screen. Just say “Lock screen,” and it will lock your iPhone’s screen.

Note: When you enable Voice Control, you can use your voice and start the process of using your phone, but you will have an extra step depending on how you log into your iPhone, i.e., Face ID, Passcode, Touch ID.

Disabling Voice Control on iPhone

If you need to disable Voice Control, head to Settings > Accessibility > Voice Control and toggle the feature off. The blue microphone icon no longer displays on the screen when it’s off.

As previously mentioned, depending on your iPhone model, you may need to disable Face ID. However, in our tests on the iPhone 11, we gave the “Go home” command, which unlocked after the voice gesture using Face ID.

Keep in mind your results may vary, and if you use a passcode, that still needs to be typed in.

Keeping iPhone Secure

Using this feature isn’t the best for keeping your phone secure. Anyone within earshot could quickly figure out your voice gestures and passcode if you read that aloud to your iPhone. Still, it’s a cool trick and a helpful (even necessary) feature for users with disabilities.

Regarding security, there are plenty of things your iPhone can do to protect you. For example, you can block ad tracking or change your passcode if yours gets compromised. And, of course, all users need to ensure that their apps on iPhone are up to date.