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(Updated: June 18, 2025) If you've ever pulled out of your driveway, heard "In 300 feet, turn left," and thought, "Okay, Waze, I know the way to the grocery store," this update is for you.
Waze has quietly made it easier to turn off its chatty navigation voice while keeping the alerts that actually matter, such as speed-camera warnings and hazard reports. The controls live inside the Sound & voice menu, and once you know where to look, they take about 30 seconds to set up. Here's what changed and how to dial Waze's commentary back.
Waze's talking voice is one of the app's most beloved — and most complained-about — features. On a single 15-minute drive, it will happily read out street names, lane instructions, route recalculations, keep-right suggestions, and a running commentary on traffic. Factor in repeated alerts when several Wazers flag the same hazard, and the navigation screen can turn into a real nag.
Turn-by-turn directions are essential on unfamiliar roads. On the daily commute, though, the constant narration is mostly noise. It interrupts music, competes with podcasts, and can make you feel like you're being coached through a route you've driven a thousand times.
After years of burying audio options behind multiple menus, Waze has streamlined things. In recent builds of the app — iOS and Android alike — the settings panel now has a clearer hierarchy under Settings → Sound & voice → Audio guidance. That menu gives you three choices:
The key one for most annoyed drivers is Alerts only. It removes the verbal map-reading but keeps the crowd-sourced safety warnings that make Waze worthwhile. Prefer total silence? Pick No guidance — you'll still see alerts on screen, but your car's stereo stays uninterrupted.
The process is nearly identical on Android and iPhone:
There's also a faster shortcut while you're driving. Tap the speaker icon in the bottom-right corner of the navigation screen to cycle through sound modes on the fly. That quick toggle cycles between all sounds, alerts only, and mute — no need to pull over and dig through menus.
One tip: after changing the voice mode, check the Sounds entry below the audio options. This controls non-verbal effects like "ding" sounds for hazards, traffic updates, and map cursors. Some drivers prefer voice off but sounds on, which gives a quiet ride with soft audio cues.
The new menu has been rolling out gradually, and in some countries Waze's localization uses slightly different labels. If you don't see the three-mode list yet, grab the latest update from the App Store or Play Store, restart the app, and look again.
In Alerts only mode, Waze stops reading street names, announcing turns, and narrating your route. You won't hear "recalculating" after missing an exit, either. What you will still get:
That makes the mode a good compromise for drivers who use Waze mainly to dodge traps on familiar roads — you get the intel without the lecture.
Drivers familiar with Waze's old behavior should also know that Alerts only and No guidance don't affect the visual map or the free route updates from the community. You lose the voice, not the data.
Dialing back the chatter isn't just a matter of preference. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that distracted driving killed 3,308 people in 2022, and navigation-related tasks are a known contributor. Voice prompts aren't as risky as texting, but studies from AAA's Foundation for Traffic Safety show that even hands-free voice commands can impose a real mental workload.
A quieter cockpit means less cognitive load. You can keep your eyes on the road, your hands on the wheel, and your mind on driving. Fewer interruptions also reduce the urge to glance at the screen just to see what Waze is babbling about now.
There's another benefit, too: battery life. The savings aren't dramatic, but with turn-by-turn narration off, your phone spends less time rendering audio prompts during long drives. That helps when you're already running GPS, music, and Android Auto or Apple CarPlay at the same time.
It's no secret that Waze's parent company Google is also pushing Google Maps as the default navigation choice, and the two teams have been sharing features over time. Google Maps already offers an "alerts only"-style voice level for people who want directions without the commentary. Waze's new streamlined menu brings the crowd-sourced app in line with that approach.
The timing says a lot about where navigation apps are headed. Drivers aren't asking for more spoken information — they're asking for better control over it. Making "alerts only" easier to reach is a quiet acknowledgment from Waze that the backseat-navigator act gets old.
If you haven't updated Waze in a while, open your app store first — the audio options work best in the latest versions. Once you've set your preference, Waze remembers it across drives. And the quick toggle means you can switch back to full guidance on an unfamiliar road trip without touching Settings again.
The beauty of the new setup is that it's reversible. Want full narration for a weekend road trip and blessed silence for the morning commute? Flip between modes in seconds.
Bottom line: you no longer have to choose between Waze's useful hazard alerts and its endless talking. The middle path — alerts only — is one tap away.
