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Can't keep phone from muting ringtones when I turn my volume all the way down.

redrosealways

redrosealways

Newbie
Until tonight, I haven't needed my phone to alert me of texts audibly but now, for a family situation, it is important I am notified of texts via tones so I don't miss them when my phone is in the other room.

For years, I have always kept my media volume down all the way/off because I don't want to hear when I accidentally hit unmute on an Instagram video while scrolling at 4am and accidentally jar my husband awake. So I always keep my volume down all the way unless I'm actively listening to something.

Now though, for the first time in years, I actually need to use my phone as a phone and need to hear my ringtone if I get an emergency text for a family situation.

On my iPhones, I would always press my volume all the way down after listening to something to keep my sound off but it didn't set my -whole freakin phone to silent- and make my ringtone silent too. Intuitively, on my iPhones, those things were separate settings so you didn't accidentally switch your phone to silent and miss important calls or texts. I never realized until tonight, when I missed an important time sensitive text by 30 minutes which was really bad, that on Android phones, this same practice of turning your volume all the way down will also mute your entire freaking phone, including ring and text tones.

Please tell me there is some way around this that I am not finding online or in the settings because this is a serious deal breaker for me. I just want to not mute my phone using the volume buttons. I just want them to be for media like on an iPhone.
 
I've seen stuff for alarm channels and priority alerts but I have not needed a phone so I don't even own a phone I plan. I just use Google voice and WiFi. Since Google voice is an app, I can't use these options with that.
 
The first thing to determine is what phone do you have and which version of Android is it running? Separate settings for media, ringtones, text, etc have been around for a while in Android. The thing is that accessing those settings can be easy or really convoluted, depending on model/version of your phone.

androidtones.jpg
 
I'd say that separate settings for different volumes have always been a feature of android. What has changed is which one the volume button changes.

In older versions pressing the volume keys (when not in a call) would change the ringer volume. In more recent versions it changes media volume. Either way there are ways of changing the other volumes, but it also depends on what android version you have. So we can't help you without knowing more about your phone's software.

What I like about the iPhone is the physical switch to silence the phone (copied from Palm - none of these companies is as innovative as they claim). I'd also like a global ban on adverts which make a noise ;).
 
Hadron said:
I'd say that separate settings for different volumes have always been a feature of android. What has changed is which one the volume button changes.

In older versions pressing the volume keys (when not in a call) would change the ringer volume. In more recent versions it changes media volume. Either way there are ways of changing the other volumes, but it also depends on what android version you have. So we can't help you without knowing more about your phone's software.

What I like about the iPhone is the physical switch to silence the phone (copied from Palm - none of these companies is as innovative as they claim). I'd also like a global ban on adverts which make a noise ;).
Click to expand...

Yeah. I don't know why everyone makes a big deal about iPhones being so original, the first, and best, isn't iOS 14 or whatever they're up to now only so glorified because they're finally stealing widgets from Android OS???? I used palm pilots for years and still love them better than iPhone if only they hadn't died out. I miss my Zire, Centro, and others. They danced circles around early iPhones with the actual programs you could run. And you bought an SD of an app and it was YOURS. No updates that may or may not break it on some models, no subscriptions, no in app purchases. It was your program. On or off WiFi. They really were like little computers. I miss them. That's why I got an Android to begin with. I missed the freedom of a real mini computer instead of Apple telling me what I could and couldn't do and modifying my phone without my consent. It does give a lot more freedom but it's the little things that are so basic but missing that are so unbelievable, like no virtual volume slider. You would think that would be with the brightness slider, but no, only can use buttons which mute the whole phone unless I buy a third party app and hope it doesn't mess anything up while it's modifying how the phone was intended to work. Luckily the volume slider app, although no longer updated it guaranteed to work was free. Hasn't been updated in years and I still have to go to my home screen every time I want to adjust the volume when on my iPhone, I just swipe up from anywhere and adjust it, but oh well.
 
Screenshot_20200912-132614_Settings.jpg
It's a Samsung Galaxy S10 running OS 10. Sorry I forgot to include that. Here's what my volume settings look like. This it. No other settings for me to work with.
[GALLERY=media, 846]GalaxyS10VolumeSettingsScreenshot_20200912-131939_Settings by redrosealways posted Sep 12, 2020 at 1:21 PM[/GALLERY]
 
Last edited:
Yeah, the volume thing is a pain in the...

Anyway, how about my phones that do (or rather, did) the same as yours, except now the volume buttons are generally nonfunctional?

Ok, so to be honest, that was a problem that I had for a while, and have partially remedied.

But the good news is that I had to figure out a way to adjust my volume without using the volume buttons.

To do this, I tried out various apps, and only two of which have stayed on my devices.

The nice thing here is that one of them, SpeakerBoost, only controls the media volume.
There is also the option to have an icon in your status bar, so that the notification can be used to access the app at any time.

The app is primarily used to boost media volume, but there is an option to include a normal volume setting as well.
This app will only control the media volume.

The other app, Sound Manager, givesvyou the ability to quickly access and adjust all the separate volumes on your device, and even schedule them to change at certain times of your choice.

To be clear, some devices have certain volumes tied together (such as ring and notification), so you may find that two or more move in unison when you adjust only one.

They are both very small and effiecient apps, and you can have them both on your device at the same time.

For an ad free app, get one of the older versions.

https://speaker-boost.en.uptodown.com/android/download/268693

And the other app is open source and ad free.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.roozen.SoundManagerv2/
 
I get a feeling this is because I bought a Samsung instead of another model. I Is this another dumb Samsung thing like Bixby?
puppykickr said:
Yeah, the volume thing is a pain in the...

Anyway, how about my phones that do (or rather, did) the same as yours, except now the volume buttons are generally nonfunctional?

Ok, so to be honest, that was a problem that I had for a while, and have partially remedied.

But the good news is that I had to figure out a way to adjust my volume without using the volume buttons.

To do this, I tried out various apps, and only two of which have stayed on my devices.

The nice thing here is that one of them, SpeakerBoost, only controls the media volume.
There is also the option to have an icon in your status bar, so that the notification can be used to access the app at any time.

The app is primarily used to boost media volume, but there is an option to include a normal volume setting as well.
This app will only control the media volume.

The other app, Sound Manager, givesvyou the ability to quickly access and adjust all the separate volumes on your device, and even schedule them to change at certain times of your choice.

To be clear, some devices have certain volumes tied together (such as ring and notification), so you may find that two or more move in unison when you adjust only one.

They are both very small and effiecient apps, and you can have them both on your device at the same time.

For an ad free app, get one of the older versions.

https://speaker-boost.en.uptodown.com/android/download/268693

And the other app is open source and ad free.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.roozen.SoundManagerv2/
Click to expand...
Thank you so much for this. I'm really mad that Samsung doesn't have a better option here, it seems so silly to have to download a third party app just to get a dedicated volume slider next to the brightness slider. I just can't use the buttons on this thing. Thank you again! At least I have a work around now.
 
Well, I can tell you that it is not an issue exclusive to Samsung.

I use ZTE devices, and the same thing happens with them.

Glad that those apps helped out. I have them both on all of my devices.
 
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