How to Temporarily Turn Off Face ID on Your iPhone
Reading Time: 2 minutes In some cases, you may want to temporarily turn off Face ID without disabling it. In other words, you may want to use your passcode to unlock your iPhone in certain situations or circumstances instead of your face. You can always turn Face ID back on later without needing to set up Face ID again.
The biggest reasons why you may want to do this are privacy and security concerns. For example, in some places, police officers can require you to unlock your iPhone with Face ID, while they cannot require you to provide your passcode/password to unlock your phone. As another example, I had a friend who was always worrying that someone might access his iPhone while he was sleeping using Face ID without his consent.
In short, temporarily turning off Face ID can be advantageous in various situations where privacy and security are important considerations.
Please note that, following this tip will quickly turn off Face ID, but only temporarily until the next time you enter your password to unlock it. Once your password is entered correctly, your Face ID will be re-enabled. It does not turn it off permanently. If you turn it off by going to Settings > Face ID & Passcode, you will need to set up your Face ID again in order to use it again.
Temporarily disable Face ID on iPhone
I will list two ways to do this. You can pick either of them:
- Press and hold the side button and either volume button until the sliders appears, but do not drag the slider; instead tap Cancel. Now you will need to enter your password to unlock your device.
- Press the side button five times quickly. Important note: This could also activate Emergency SOS. A countdown will start; thus, you should cancel the emergency call before the call goes out. You can make sure that you won’t accidentally make an emergency call by disabling the emergency call with the side button feature by going to Settings > Emergency SOS.
Once you do one of these, your iPhone will asked you to enter your passcode and will say “your passcode is required to enable Face ID.” Thus, your phone will be locked and cannot be accessed without entering its passcode.
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