Let’s talk about the most annoying feature you probably didn’t know your phone had.
You’re on a call. You adjust the phone against your ear. A slight brush of your cheek against the glass. Bam. The dialer disappears. A chat window pops open. Your keyboard takes over, and the audio drops dead.
What just happened? You triggered RTT.
RTT stands for Real-Time Text. It’s supposed to be a massive upgrade from those old, clunky TTY machines for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. And honestly? It’s an incredible accessibility tool. Because it transmits text instantly, you don’t hit “send.” The person on the other end literally watches you type, backspace, and fix typos in real time.
But if you don’t actually need it? It’s a total nightmare. It ruins the audio. It thoroughly confuses whoever you’re talking to. Worse, it completely messes up automated phone menus when you’re just trying to punch “1” to reach a human being at your bank.
Here’s how to kill the feature on your device so you can go back to making normal phone calls.
Shutting Down RTT on an iPhone
Apple loves simplicity. But they completely buried this one. Sometimes, if you bought your phone straight from a major carrier, it’s even turned on by default right out of the box.
Don’t bother looking in the Phone app. It’s not there.
Open your main Settings app.
Scroll down and tap Accessibility.
Look for the Hearing section and tap RTT/TTY.
See those toggle switches at the top? Flip Software RTT to the off position.
If there’s a Hardware TTY switch, kill that one too just to be safe.
That’s it. The little RTT button is completely gone from your call screen. (Keep an eye on it after major iOS updates, though. Sometimes carrier profile updates sneakily flip it back on.)
Disabling RTT on a Google Pixel (or Stock Android)
Android puts this exactly where you’d think it should be: right inside the Phone app. Makes sense, right?
Open up your Phone app. The one you actually use to dial numbers.
Tap the three little dots in the top right corner. Hit Settings.
Tap Accessibility.
Tap Real-time text (RTT).
Instead of a simple on/off switch, Android gives you a few visibility options. Change it from “Always visible” to Not visible. Once you do that, the button vanishes.
Note: if someone who genuinely uses RTT calls you, the cellular network can still bridge that connection. But you won’t accidentally trigger it with your chin anymore.
The Samsung Galaxy Headache
Got a Samsung? Take a breath. This might be annoying.
Samsung loves to move Google’s standard settings around just for the fun of it. To find it, open the Phone app > three dots > Settings > Accessibility. (On some newer models, you have to go through your main phone Settings > Accessibility > Hearing enhancements > Real Time Text).
Here’s the frustrating part. Depending on your carrier, your phone might literally not have an “Off” button. Some Galaxy users report only seeing “Always show” and “Show only during calls” because the carrier locked the setting.
If you’re stuck in this weird software trap, there’s a workaround. You don’t have to use Samsung’s default dialer. Jump into the Google Play Store, download the official “Phone by Google” app, and set it as your default phone app. The Google app bypasses Samsung’s stubborn carrier locks and actually gives you the proper “Not visible” option. Problem solved.
Take three minutes. Dig into your settings. Flip those toggles. Go back to talking without the fear of accidentally live-streaming a text conversation to your boss.