Guide on How to Use Android 12’s Call Screening Features

Getting spam calls is never fun especially when you are in the middle of something important. However, you can screen those unwanted calls with Google’s free “Screen Call” feature. Screen Call is a feature found in Google’s Phone screening app, that allows you to screen calls for numbers you don’t recognize (or people you don’t particularly want to talk to). This gives you a chance to protect your privacy as you know who is calling and who you don’t want to talk to.

This handy call screening functionality was initially only supporting Google Pixel phones but with the release of Android 12, Google has extended this feature to support non-pixel phones and added some useful features that can not only save you from having to deal with spam calls but can keep you from having to deal with the tedious and frustrating process of working through call menus.

How does call screening work?

Here’s how it works: When you get a phone call from someone who is not in your contact list, or you think you’re getting a spam call, you get a “Screen call” button (along with the buttons for accepting or denying the call). If you hit the “Screen call” button, the caller will get an audio message by Google Assistant asking the other end (if there is one) to identify themselves and describe the purpose of the call. The transcribed text of the message and their reply will appear on your call screen. You can then choose whether you want to pick up the call or not.

This call screening functionality is of two types Manual and Automatic. Unfortunately, as we all know, there can be vast differences between Android phones, depending on the manufacturer and the model. As a result, one of the newest features available — automatic call screening — can currently only be found on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro and the newest Samsung Series Phones. Google Phone app is available on most Android devices running Android™ 7.0 and above. Visit Google Play Store to download and install.

In this post, we’ll be giving the guide on how to use Google’s call screening feature for a Pixel 6 or 6 Plus and for other phones that may currently be using Android 12.
It’s not difficult to manage how Screen Call works. Here’s how you can adjust your settings, depending on whether you are using a Pixel 6 model or not.

PIXEL 6 AND 6 PRO

• In the Phone app, tap the three dots in the upper right corner
• Go to Settings > Spam and Call Screen
• You will first see two controls that you can toggle on and off: “See caller and spam ID” (which has the phone identify business and spam numbers, as well as known contacts) and “Verified Calls” (which lets you see the call ID for businesses that are verified as legit).

To explore other controls, tap on “Call Screen.” Here, you can decide what you want to do with calls that fall into one of several categories: spam, possibly faked numbers, first-time callers, or hidden numbers. In all categories, you have two choices: you can choose to have the phone ring and then manually decide whether you want to screen the call or not, or you can let Google automatically screen the call and decline it if it’s a robocall. The only exception is spam calls, which you can also choose to silently decline so that your phone won’t ring at all.

You can set how you’d like calls from these categories to be handled separately: Tap on the category name and select how you’d like those calls to be handled. The phone default is to ring the phone and let you decide manually whether you’d like to screen the call, so if that’s your choice, you can just leave things as they are.

NOTE: According to Google, automatic screening won’t work if you’re using headphones or speakers.

There are other features you can enable in Call Screen. You can save the audio from any calls that are screened and you can also change the sounding voice answer to have either a female-sounding or male-sounding voice answer the screened call, Tap on “Voice.” The default is female.

OLDER PIXELS AND OTHER PHONES

If you aren’t using Google Pixel 6 or 6 Plus, you can still explore the call screening feature the only setback is that you won’t have access to the automatic screening available in the Pixel 6. You can manage the settings for call screening here:

• In the Phone app, tap the three dots in the upper right corner
• Go to Settings > Caller ID & spam
• On many other Android phones, you can find the screening settings under “Caller ID & spam.”
• You will have access to three controls that you can toggle on and off: “See caller and spam ID” (which lets you identify business and spam numbers, as well as known contacts). You can choose to filter suspected spam calls to prevent from ringing your phone.

Of course, there are other ways to block spam callers but whether you have access to automatic screening or just manual screening, being able to screen unknown phone numbers gives you a chance to protect your privacy as you know who is calling and who you don’t want to talk to.