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How to disable Android lock screen controls?

  • March 1, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 67 views
J
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Sigh. Apologies for being a wet blanket, but after I got the Android lock screen controls, I thought it would be somewhat useful. But,after a few days, I find I don’t make use of it, and it takes a great deal of space in the notification pane. Also, it seems to come and go; it is not consistently there when I play something.

 

Worse, I see now that there’s a musical note icon on my Pixel watch that brings up a mini Sonos controller. This might be useful; however, it is located in the same place as the notification dot, and with my fat finger I am constantly bringing up the controller when I want the notification. I can’t find a way to disable having this on my watch. So, I’d like to disable the lock screen on the app, but I see no way of doing that. Perhaps it is a phone setting, but I haven’t been able to find that either. Any help would be appreciated. I’m on a Pixel 10 and a Pixel 3 watch BTW.

Best answer by Johnny Rico

Well I figured it out with the help of an AI chat. It is maddening that it took such effort to deal with this. For anyone with the same problem, to get to your settings, you need to click on your user icon in the app; not the gear icon, which is also maddening. That is where app preferences are located. Say, are there any other people using my phone such that you need to separate the settings like that? Tablets you say, those are shared. Ok then, maybe under the gear you can include “user settings”. Sheesh. Anyway, in your user info there is app preferences and in there is the way to turn off the lock screen. Now it is off my phone and off my watch. Hey maybe add a use case “turn off phone lock screen controls” to the test suite. I’d like to see if a typical user could do it within 5 minutes.

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  • Johnny Rico
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  • Answer
  • March 1, 2026

Well I figured it out with the help of an AI chat. It is maddening that it took such effort to deal with this. For anyone with the same problem, to get to your settings, you need to click on your user icon in the app; not the gear icon, which is also maddening. That is where app preferences are located. Say, are there any other people using my phone such that you need to separate the settings like that? Tablets you say, those are shared. Ok then, maybe under the gear you can include “user settings”. Sheesh. Anyway, in your user info there is app preferences and in there is the way to turn off the lock screen. Now it is off my phone and off my watch. Hey maybe add a use case “turn off phone lock screen controls” to the test suite. I’d like to see if a typical user could do it within 5 minutes.

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