How to Turn Off the Shutter Sound on a Samsung Galaxy

Unfortunately, Galaxy phones make a particularly loud shutter sound that could wake up the dead in an otherwise silent room. There’s a switch to turn it off, but whether your phone has it depends on where it was sold.

Unfortunately, not all Galaxy phones allow the camera shutter sound to be disabled, as phones sold in South Korea and Japan always play the camera shutter sound. But for those models that allow it to be muted, here’s how to do it starting with the fastest way.

Which Samsung phones let you turn off the shutter sound?

Most Galaxy phones sold in the US have a Shutter sound switch in Camera settings, but phones sold in the UK, the EU and South Korea don't, and neither do phones from Japanese carriers.

Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra in Europe (One UI 9, checked November 2026) has no Shutter sound option in Camera settings, and it’s not in Camera Assistant either. This is normal, and you can’t turn off camera shutter sound in Camera settings on Galaxy phones in the UK/EU.

It’s also worth noting that on some Galaxy phones/carrier combinations you won’t be able to turn it off, according to Samsung’s troubleshooting page on their US website. On most Galaxy phones available in the US there’s a Shutter sound option in Camera settings which plays a sound when taking a photo (also true on Galaxy A16/A26/A36/A56 and Galaxy S25/S26 series according to Samsung’s US support pages). However, this option isn’t available on Galaxy phones in the UK/EU (confirmed by a moderator on Samsung’s UK community website back in March 2024), and you won’t find it mentioned in the Galaxy A26 user guide for European Galaxy phones, for example.

How do I turn off the shutter sound on a Samsung camera?

1. 1

   Open Camera settings

   Go into the Camera app, tap on Quick controls (the four dots next to the zoom buttons) and then tap on the gear to get to Camera settings. On the S25 series and One UI 7 and newer (according to Samsung’s website in the US), this is the way to get to Camera settings, but on older versions, the gear is located in the top row of buttons in the viewfinder.

2. 2

   Find Shutter sound

   Scroll down to the General section of settings. Shutter sound will be in here on phones that have the option (along with things like Composition guide and Location tags).

3. 3

   Switch it off and test

   Switch it off and take a test shot. If there’s no Shutter sound item, your phone doesn’t have this feature (regional phones), so you’ll need to use the System volume method below.

Samsung’s camera app also lets you turn off Vibration feedback, found under General. This setting controls whether your phone will vibrate when you press the camera button, so we’d recommend turning it off if you’re using a tripod or have your phone propped up somewhere.

Motion photos is another setting that could affect how your phone sounds when taking photos, as Samsung’s S26 user manual notes that it can have its own sound settings. If you find that you always leave Motion photos on, we’d recommend checking those settings, too.

No switch? Mute the System volume

For those phones that don’t have the switch, Samsung’s solution is to set the System volume all the way down. According to the company’s troubleshooting page in the US, the camera shutter sound won’t play if the volume is at zero. The moderator in the UK gave the same advice.

1. 1

   Open the volume sliders

   On the Home screen, press Volume down and tap the three dots at the top of the volume pop-up (that’s how Samsung US has it covered). You can also head to Settings > Sounds and vibration > Volume.

2. 2

   Drag System to zero

   Drag the System slider all the way down. According to the answer provided by the moderator from the UK, this turns off all system sounds, including the camera shutter.

3. 3

   Take a test shot

   Fire up the camera app and test by taking a shot first.

4. 4

   Turn it back up afterwards

   Don’t forget to turn it back up when you’re done, or you’ll also be missing out on other system noises.

Mute mode and routines

Samsung suggests swiping down from the top of your screen and selecting Sound, Vibrate or Mute from the quick panel, which is the quickest way of muting your Galaxy phone.

Some UK Galaxy phone owners have also reported in a Samsung community thread that silencing their phone stops the camera making a shutter sound, but Samsung hasn’t specifically mentioned this, so it’s worth giving it a go first to see if it works on your Galaxy phone (particularly as muting your phone will also silence calls and notifications).

If you want your Galaxy phone to only be silenced when you’re using the camera app, you can create a routine to do this. Samsung explains how to set up routines on its US website, via Settings, then Modes and Routines and the Routines tab. One UK Galaxy phone owner posted details of a routine they set up in March 2024 that mutes their phone whenever they open the Camera app and unmutes it when they exit the Camera app. But another Galaxy phone owner said in May 2025 that this trick no longer works consistently with One UI 7, so you may want to double-check yours is working properly before counting on it.

1. 1

   Start a new routine

   Navigate to Settings > Modes and Routines > Routines and tap the plus (+) button.

2. 2

   Set the trigger

   Tap under If and choose an app being opened as the condition, then pick Camera.

3. 3

   Set the action

   Tap the line under Then and choose the option to set sound mode to Mute, or alternatively to set System volume to zero. Depending on your One UI version, this may be slightly different.

4. 4

   Save and test

   Tap Save and then open the camera and take a test photo to make sure the problem has been solved on your phone.

Why can't Korean and Japanese Galaxy phones mute the shutter?

The Korea Herald reported back in November 2023 that the shutter sound can’t be disabled on phones made in South Korea, where The Korea Times says that the government told handset makers in 2004 that camera phones should have an audible (at least 65 decibels) camera shutter sound to discourage sneak shots. According to The Korea Herald, an Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission survey found that 86.2 percent of the 3,476 respondents thought people should be able to choose whether or not to hear the shutter sound, and the commission forwarded that info to the Telecommunications Technology Association as a suggested policy.

There’s no law in Japan, but carriers simply decided that phones sold in the country should have a shutter sound that couldn’t be disabled, and according to Engadget’s 2016 piece on the topic, NTT Docomo said the noisemaker was added to help prevent surreptitious photo-taking. There’s also a check for it in Android. Since Android 13, camera apps can ask the OS if there are region-based restrictions that call for a shutter sound, and Google highly encourages apps to honour that request (so apps outside of the phone’s own camera app should also abide by the rule).

Silent camera apps and adb tweaks

Many of the methods found online for how to turn off the Samsung camera sound are unsupported by Samsung and rely on changing hidden settings in Android. Depending on the method, it may stop working after an update, and some methods that once worked no longer work reliably on One UI 7, according to posts by other Galaxy owners on Samsung’s community in 2025.

You can also find certain third-party apps that mute your camera shutter sound, but again, these are unsupported by Samsung and you should stick to the official ways above. If you’re in Japan or Korea, you shouldn’t attempt any of these in the first place, as they go against the purpose of the local rule.

Shooting quietly and fairly

A silent shutter is handy if you want to take photos of a sleeping baby, during a wedding, or of skittish animals. Note that Samsung's S26 user manual also includes a brief camera etiquette section, advising you not to take photos/videos of people without their consent, in places where it's legally prohibited, or situations where taking photos/videos may violate someone's privacy, none of which change just because the shutter isn't making a noise. Keep the sound on in public, our street photography guide suggests, so people know when you take their pictures.

At events, keep the flash off and use a stable shooting position (see our wedding photography guide for more information on this). Combine these with a silent shutter. The concert photography guide has more of an emphasis on stage light settings since the clicking sound would be drowned out by the music during a performance anyway. When observing wildlife, you need to consider safe distance and other aspects of fieldcraft, as covered in our wildlife photography guide, as often the encounter is over with the first noise! For the rest of the options in Camera settings, see our camera settings guide.