“By the way,” Alexa occasionally chimes in after fulfilling a command, offering a piece of advice or a suggestion you never requested. Sound familiar?
In fairness, Alexa’s “by the way” interruptions are intended to be helpful. However, Amazon’s voice assistant has a habit of intruding at inopportune moments, making unnecessary comments or lingering too long with off-topic remarks.
Fortunately, there are several methods to tone down Alexa’s chatter. Sometimes, all it takes is tweaking a few settings in the Alexa app. In other cases, a bit of customization is required.
No matter the approach, we’ll guide you through the steps so you can enjoy a quieter experience.
Disable Weather Notifications
Staying informed about severe weather conditions, such as heatwaves, floods, or hurricanes, is crucial. However, alerts for rip tides or wind advisories might be overkill—especially if you’re already receiving similar warnings from other apps.
To modify or turn off Alexa’s weather notifications, follow these steps:
- Open the Alexa app, tap More, then Settings, and navigate to Notifications. Scroll down to Weather.
- Tap Severe Weather Alert to adjust your preferences. You can choose whether Alexa repeats severe weather alerts or just mentions them once. You can also opt for mobile push notifications.
- Finally, decide how you want to receive these alerts: through Alexa’s voice announcements or as standard notifications on your Alexa devices.
Mute Amazon Shopping Notifications
If you’re concerned about package theft, you might appreciate immediate updates on your Amazon deliveries.
However, you may not want to be notified of every detail, such as when a package is out for delivery, if your return has reached the warehouse, or the status of a “Subscribe & Save” order.
To control Alexa’s shopping notifications, do the following:
- Open the Alexa app, tap More, then Settings, and go to Notifications. Select Amazon Shopping.
- Review the available options and disable the notifications you don’t need. For instance, you can stop Alexa from announcing updates on your orders or silence the “out for delivery” and “delivered” alerts.
- Additionally, you can turn off updates for “Subscribe & Save” orders and prevent deal and reorder suggestions.
Disable “Always Follow Up” for Reminders
Alexa can be persistent when it comes to reminders, repeatedly prompting you until they’re marked as completed.
While this feature may be useful if you need constant reminders, it can become irritating. To reduce Alexa’s reminders:
- Tap More, then Settings, and select Reminders.
- Scroll down to disable the Always Follow-up option, so Alexa stops nagging you about incomplete reminders.
- You can also limit the number of times Alexa announces a reminder, choosing between one and three repetitions.
Enable Brief Mode
Alexa’s verbosity can be overwhelming, even during routine interactions, from the moment you say “Alexa” to the completion of a command.
To streamline Alexa’s responses:
- Tap More, then Settings, and select Voice Responses.
- Enable Brief Mode.
- Alexa will now acknowledge most tasks with a simple beep rather than a lengthy response.
Taming the “By the Way” Comments
If you expected Brief Mode to eliminate Alexa’s “by the way” comments, you might be disappointed.
Even with Brief Mode active, these comments may still appear, especially after you ask Alexa to perform a task.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a foolproof setting to permanently remove the “by the way” comments. However, a clever hack shared by Reddit users offers a solution.
This method involves instructing Alexa to “stop By the Way,” though it only provides temporary relief. For a more lasting fix, you can create a routine that issues the “stop By the Way” command daily.
- Tap More, then Routines, and tap the “+” button in the top-right corner.
- Name the routine (such as “Stop by the way”) and set a triggering event, like a specific time each day.
- Add an action, tap Custom, and type “stop by the way.”
Now, Alexa will remind herself to stop saying “by the way” each day, hopefully ending those interruptions for good.
