QuackFuzed [ Ramblings of a Con..ColdFuzed Mind ]

Disabling the God-Awful "Emergency Alerts" on a Samsung Galaxy S2

Posted on December 19, 2012 at 5:53 PM in General, Rants

I've had my Galaxy S2 for well over a year now, and until yesterday I had never even heard of an "emergency alert" on a phone. I was focused on something when suddenly the silence was pierced by my phone screaming at me and a message popping up about an AMBER Alert.

It just about gave me a coronary. When I recovered from that, bewilderment and anger set in. WTF is this stupid alert suddenly coming to my phone? I've never asked for such a thing. Hell, I seriously didn't know such a "service" existed!

I asked a few friends and family members if they got such an alert, and not a single one did. Then a friend found a link to a 2011 story on my city's website that gave folks a way to opt-in to such alerts. I was still puzzled, as I have absolutely never asked for any such alerts to be sent to me.

A couple of hours later I got the exact same AMBER Alert sent to me again. Once again, it scared the hell out of me (does that mean I'm all heavenly now?). Once again, it angered and confused me. To make things more bizarre, I couldn't find anything about said AMBER Alert on any of the local news outlet websites. Another friend found a generic posting *from the day before* about the exact AMBER Alert that was suddenly invading my private space. Really? 24+ hours later?

This morning at 4:30AM I was suddenly awakened by - you guessed it - my phone screaming and vibrating with another "emergency alert". This time it was a delightful message telling me a dust storm was approaching and not to drive anywhere. REALLY??? I WAS SLEEPING YOU STUPID FUCKS!!

Anyway, after much Googling (admittedly my Google-fu sux0rs) and not finding any direct answers, I finally found enough bits and pieces to figure out how to disable this utterly absurd "service". As the title indicates, this is specific to the Samsung Galaxy S2, but I would expect that other phones would have similar steps.

• Open up your text message application
• Open the menu and choose "Settings"
• Scroll down to "Emergency alerts"
• UNcheck everything
• Exit the app

The only "emergency" alert you cannot unsubscribe from is the "Presidential Alerts". All I can say is this: The day I get such a "Presidential Alert" had best be the day that whomever is occupying the White House at the time is contacting me to tell me that he/she is on the way over for dinner so that we can have a discussion about fixing the absurdity that is US politics, which generally means he/she is offering me their resignation after issuing an executive order that fires every sitting member of congress, parties abolished, and strict term limits (4 years, max) put in place. Aside from that, I don't want to hear from the buffoon.

UPDATE (2013-04-28)

Thanks to Mahadragon for pointing out in a comment that the instructions above are for the default messaging app. If you have installed any other messaging app(s), the instructions won't work. Open up the default messaging app and follow along from there.

Comments

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On 12/19/12 at 11:50 PM, Michael Zock said:

It sounds like in your case they were at least somewhat related to the original intent of the feature.
When I went through the same thing it was because I kept receiving messages about unimportant stuff like tomorrow's weather through the same means.

On 12/21/12 at 9:45 PM, Bob777 said:

Thanks for the info. Worked great to turn off that annoying alert.
Also your final comments are great. I couldn't agree with you more.

On 12/25/12 at 6:25 PM, Rick said:

THANK YOU! I almost wrecked the car yesterday when that thing went off. Turned off the radio, thinking it was on there. My son rolled the window down to determine if it was the neighborhood alert system. Finally figured out it was coming from my phone. It went off 2 more times last night during dinner with family and again just now. #!$@ irritating. Thanks for posting how to kill the d*mn thing.

On 12/27/12 at 10:55 PM, John said:

HELP I CAN NOT FIND THE SETTINGS IN THE MESSAGE APP! I can't turn it off till I do.I'm telephonicly illiterate. Can someone give me baby steps on how to get it off my phone. THANKS, John You described my exact reactions when I first heard THE NOISE.

On 2/20/13 at 11:50 PM, Madhur said:

Thanks helped me as well

On 3/8/13 at 1:03 AM, Guitar Lessons Plano Tx said:

LOL I found this page looking to see how to disable the Amber Alert I just received from out of nowhere. WTF.... But I like your viewpoint on politics so much I had to leave a comment. LOL I been saying that for years! Get rid of every single one of them bums! They only serve themselves thats why things are so screwed up these days... For example, If everyone agrees that we shouldnt have a defecit, Then why do we have one?!! Because theyre all full of BS... Anyways just wanted to let you know that your article made me LOL... Rock on!

On 3/8/13 at 1:05 AM, amber alert alergic said:

here is what you do:

Make sure you open the GS2 native messaging. If you installed Go SMS Pro or anything to do your texting, you still have to open the native messaging ass to do this.

So, go to the all apps icon (if you do not have the original icon on display), choose messaging.
Then, click the left menu touch button (to bring up menu options).
Then, click on settings.
Scroll down until you see CMAS Alerts (set options for emergency messages)
Choose which one you want to disable, uncheck any you do not want to get.
The AMBER ALERT one is the last one in case that is what woke you up at 4:20am.

Press exit until you are on your desktop and done.
Good luck.

On 3/8/13 at 4:04 AM, Stephanie said:

Thank you so much for this. Mine does the same thing but it happens every 1.5 hours! It is horrible to be woken up by this sound having non idea that it is coming from your phone. I shot out of bed thinking the house was on fire or something.

On 3/8/13 at 12:21 PM, Alice Hammond said:

Omg thank you!!! Its 420 am and my phone just started screamong at me anout an amber alert!!

On 3/13/13 at 4:16 AM, jenni said:

Thank you! Thank you! I am still shaking from the blaring Amber Alert three states away! You are the best! Now, I can sleep.

On 3/13/13 at 5:10 AM, Matt Quackenbush said:

Glad I was able to help so many folks! Sux0rs that _anyone_ has to deal with BS like this, but figuring that many more will have to, I hope folks continue to be helped in the future. :-)

On 4/13/13 at 12:21 AM, mleon said:

THANK YOU for sharing this! I too was almost shocked into a coronary by the Amber alerts, that suddenly started up just a month ago on my S2. God bless you!

On 4/13/13 at 1:42 PM, Netdiver said:

I had been hit by such alert twice 6:20am in the past 30 days. It really bugged me a lot since I have to take a good sleep after and before hard work! I am sure I did not subscribe such AMBER. I did not understand what AMBER is, as it shows up something a driver license number. After early morning googling, I found it is for missing children. I feel sorry for the parents involved but the cases are far far away from I am sleeping. Luckily I found this link and disabled it as instructed. Thank you so much, you saved by day.

On 4/28/13 at 6:49 PM, Mahadragon said:

My S2 from TMobile has like half a dozen messaging apps. I'm sure I'm not the only one confused by exactly which app this is but I found it. It's the default chat app that's one of the four icons of the bottom on the screen when you looking at your home screens. Prior to this I literally went through every freaking chat and messaging app as well as general settings and couldn't find it. Thanks to you guys for pointing me in the right direction. Oh one more thing, the icon looks like an envelope with a yellow piece of paper coming out of it. That should help speed the process.

On 4/29/13 at 3:11 AM, Marissa said:

THANK YOU!!! Received 3 today, the first one being at 3:30 in the morning, and the second while I was at work sleepy due to being woken up at 3:30 am...Loved your comments about the presidential alerts!

On 4/29/13 at 7:36 AM, Tracey said:

Thank you for this!!!! My freaking phone had been going off since 3am!!!! And the alert was canceled 15 hours ago!!! You saved my sanity. :)

On 4/29/13 at 4:05 PM, B said:

Thank god...I've had 8 in the last two days, some repeats. THANK YOU!!

On 5/15/13 at 8:26 PM, MKB said:

Awesome..thanks. Received a "sever" alert 30 seconds ago that scared the crap out of me. I knew I had seen that setting but could not remeber what application. I was, however, able to uncheck "presidential" so you'll have to let me know how dinner goes ;)

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