Get help in an emergency using your Pixel phone

Add the Personal Safety app on a Pixel 3a or earlier

1. Check that you have the latest Android software. Learn how to check your Android version.
2. Go to Settings About phone.
3. Tap Emergency Information.
4. In the banner at the top of the screen, tap Update.

If you don’t notice the banner, check if the Personal Safety app is already on your phone. Make sure that it’s updated to the latest version in the Play Store.

What you can do

• On Pixel 3a and earlier, even if you haven't added the app to your phone: you can sign in with your Google Account, add emergency contacts and list medical info.
• When the app is installed: you can use Emergency SOS, Emergency Sharing, Safety Check, crisis alerts and Car Crash Detection. Car Crash Detection is available on Pixel 4a and later, including Fold.

What you need

The Personal Safety app requires Location Services and permissions to be turned on. Location Sharing is only available in certain countries and for some user types. Learn more about Location Sharing.

You can share your real-time location with others from your devices through Location Sharing. When you share your location with someone, that person can view your name, photo and real-time location across Google products, including Google Maps. Your shared location info could include:

• Your current or previous locations.
• Your current activities, like driving or walking.
• Your device specifics, like battery life or GPS connections.
• Your call status, like 'started a call' or 'called local emergency number'.
• Your places, like home, work or destinations.

1. Open your phone's Personal Safety app  .
2. If asked, sign in to your Google Account.
3. Tap Your info.
4. Add your emergency info.
   • For medical information:
     • Tap Medical information.
     • To add info like allergies or medications, tap the item in the list that you'd like to update.
   • For emergency contacts:
     • Tap Emergency contacts Add contact  The existing contact that you'd like to add.

Tips:

• To show your emergency info when your screen is locked, tap Allow access to emergency info  Show when locked. 
• Set up a SIM card or eSIM with your phone. Otherwise, your phone can’t text your emergency contact later. Learn how to insert a SIM card.
• If you don't have the Personal Safety app on your phone, find out how to add the app.

1. Open your phone's Personal Safety app .
2. Tap Features.
3. Scroll to 'Car Crash Detection'.
4. Tap Set up.
   • When asked to share your location, tap Allow while app is in use.
   • When asked to share your microphone and physical activity, tap Allow.

To detect a possible severe car crash, Pixel 4a and later phones, including Fold, can use info like your phone’s location, motion sensors and nearby sounds. Car Crash Detection requires location, physical activity and microphone permissions to work. If your phone detects a car crash, it can call emergency services for you. This call uses Android's Emergency Location Service and may transmit info about where you are and what happened. Learn how to manage your Pixel phone's permissions.

Important:

• Both Car Crash Detection and Emergency Location Service can be used independently.
• If turned on, Emergency Location Service will work for all emergency calls (if available in an area) and send your location info to emergency services.
• Car Crash Detection also uses Emergency Location Service whenever it places a call automatically during emergency situations.
• Car Crash Detection will continue to function even if Emergency Location Service is turned off.

Your phone may not be able to detect all crashes. High-impact activities could also trigger Car Crash Detection. In some cases, your Pixel phone might not be able to call emergency services. For example, your phone might be connected to a weak mobile network or in an ongoing call.

Important:

• Your phone must have a SIM for Car Crash Detection to work. Learn how to add a SIM.
• Emergency SOS doesn't work in aeroplane mode or when Battery Saver is on.
• Emergency SOS is available on Pixel 4a and later, including Fold.

1. Open your phone's Settings app.
2. Press Safety and emergency Emergency SOS.
3. At the bottom, press Start setup.
4. If you need help, your phone can start emergency actions.
   1. To set up your emergency services number, press Start.
      1. If you need to change the local emergency number, tap Change number.
      2. Once you have the correct local number, press Next.
   2. If you're unable to respond, you can turn on assisted calling so that your phone can share your location with emergency services.
      1. To use assisted calling, press Turn on.
         Tip: Availability of assisted calling depends on location.
   3. To share your location information with and send updates to your emergency contacts, press Start setup Set up.
      1. Press Add contact, then pick a contact to share information with during an emergency.
      2. Choose what information to have Emergency SOS share with your emergency contact.
      3. Press Next.
   4. To share your location in an emergency, you must allow the Personal Safety app to access your location while using the app.
      1. Press Next While using the app.
   5. To have Emergency SOS start an emergency recording while still using your phone's other features, scroll down and press Start setup.
      • If you want to record emergency video, press Turn on While using the app.
      • You can choose to share your video automatically with your emergency contacts after it's backed up to your device. Choose Share automatically after backup Next.
   6. To start Emergency SOS actions, choose one of the options:
      • Select Use touch & hold to start actions.
      • Select Start actions immediately after countdown. If you want an alarm to sound with this option, turn on Play alarm sound.
5. Press Done.

Choose how to start Emergency SOS

You can set up Emergency SOS so that the emergency actions start automatically, or you can require a confirmation step before the actions start.

1. Open your phone's Settings app.
2. Press Safety and emergency Emergency SOS.
3. Under 'How it works', press Settings .
4. You can set up Emergency SOS in two ways:
   • To add a confirmation step before an emergency action starts, press Touch & hold to start actions.
   • To start emergency actions automatically after a five-second countdown, press Start actions automatically.

1. Open your phone's Settings app.
2. Press Safety and emergency Emergency SOS.
3. Under 'How it works', press Settings .
4. Press Turn off Emergency SOS.

1. Open your phone's Settings app.
2. Tap Display  Lock screen  Add text on lock screen.
3. Enter your message, like information that would help someone return your phone if you lost it.
4. Tap Save.

You can turn alert types on or off, find past alerts and control sound and vibration.

1. On your phone, open the Settings app.
2. Tap Notifications  Wireless emergency alerts.
3. Choose how often you want to receive alerts and which settings you want to turn on.

When you have Car Crash Detection turned on, your phone can determine if you were in a severe car crash. Your phone will vibrate, sound an alarm and ask if you need help, both aloud and on your phone screen.

If you respond within 60 seconds, you can choose to call emergency services or cancel the call.

Call emergency services

• If Emergency Sharing is turned on, say 'Emergency' or drag the slider to Call 999 and notify contacts.
• Your phone will turn on speaker phone automatically.

Cancel the call

• Say 'Cancel' or press I'm OK.
• Your phone won't make an emergency call.

If you don't respond within 60 seconds

• Your phone will automatically turn on speakerphone, try to call emergency services, say that a car crash happened and share your device's approximate location.
• The message will repeat, but you can speak over it. To stop the message and stay on the call, press Cancel.

Learn more about emergency calling.

1. On your phone, press the power button five times or more.
2. Depending on your settings, touch and hold inside the red circle for three seconds or wait for the automatic countdown to start the emergency call.
3. After you start an emergency call, other emergency actions begin based on your settings.

Important: If you turned on Emergency Sharing and video recording, these actions will start while your call is placed with emergency services. Learn more about how to record video in an emergency.

If you turn on auto-share, a link to your video will be automatically shared with all of your emergency contacts after each recording. If you don’t have emergency contacts set up, your video will not be shared with anyone. If you decide that you don’t want to share the video, you have 15 seconds after recording to cancel sharing. After you finish recording, the time that it takes to upload and share your video depends on your Internet connection. Any emergency contact that you share with can download a copy of your video.

Only one sharing link per video can be active at a given time. Each link created has a seven-day expiry timer that is meant to protect your privacy. You can deactivate a link at any time. To refresh the expiry timer, deactivate the existing link and create a new link. To deactivate a sharing link:

1. Open your phone's Personal Safety app .
2. Tap Your info Your videos.
3. Next to a video, tap More Delete Delete.

1. Open your phone's Personal Safety app .
2. Tap Your info Your videos.
3. Next to a video, tap More Share or Delete.

Tip: If you delete a file, it’s permanently deleted from your Google Account and this can’t be undone.

To help responders find you quickly, your phone's location can be sent when you dial or text an emergency number, like when you dial 911 in the US, 112 in Europe or 999 in the United Kingdom.

If Android Emergency Location Service (ELS) works in your country or region and on your mobile network, and you haven't turned off ELS, your phone will automatically send its location to first responders through ELS. If ELS is off, your mobile operator might still send the device's location during an emergency call or text.

1. On your phone, open the Settings app.
2. Tap Location  Location services  Emergency Location Service or Google Emergency Location Service.
3. Turn Emergency Location Service or Google Emergency Location Service on or off.

Your phone uses Emergency Location Service (ELS) only when you call or text an emergency number. 

If your phone has ELS turned on, ELS may use Google Location Services and other info to determine the most accurate location for your phone during an emergency call. ELS may also send extra info, like the language that your device is set up with.

To help them locate and assist you, your phone makes this data available to authorised emergency response services. Emergency response services receive this data directly from your phone, not through Google.

After you complete a call or text during which ELS was active, your phone sends usage, analytics and diagnostics data to Google via Google Play services. Google uses this info to analyse how well ELS works and doesn't receive any info that could identify you, including your location.

When you send your location with ELS, the process is different from when you share your location with Google Maps. Learn more about Location Sharing with Google Maps.

You can let your emergency contacts view your location and receive updates about where you are and your battery percentage. You must give the Personal Safety app permission to access your location.

To use Emergency Sharing, you must:

• Have at least one emergency contact.
• Grant the Personal Safety app 'While in use' location permissions.
  • Important: If Location Sharing is unavailable in your country, a message will appear in the Personal Safety app.
• Have an Internet connection and Location Services turned on.
• Turn on Emergency call status sharing.

Start Emergency Sharing

1. Open your phone's Personal Safety app .
2. Tap Emergency Sharing.
3. Select who you want to share your real-time location with.
   • You can add an optional message.
4. Tap Share.
5. Tap the notification banner to view the details of your emergency sharing.

Stop Emergency Sharing

1. Open your phone's Personal Safety app .
2. Tap the Emergency Sharing information.
3. Tap Stop.
   • You can add a note to explain why you’ve ended the emergency share.

Tip: Emergency Sharing will automatically end after 24 hours.

Emergency Sharing with Car Crash Detection

If you have Car Crash Detection turned on, you can set your phone to start Emergency Sharing in the event of a crash.

Turn on Emergency Sharing with Car Crash Detection

1. Open your phone's Personal Safety app .
2. At the bottom, tap Features.
3. Tap Car Crash Detection.
4. Select your phone's emergency response if it detects a crash.
   • To text your location and updates to your emergency contacts, tap Emergency Sharing.

If Car Crash Detection is turned on, it will automatically call emergency services.

• If a crash is detected and you respond within 60 seconds, you can:
  • Tap I'm OK to cancel the call.
  • Tap Call 999 and notify contacts.

Tip: You can ask Google Assistant to start Emergency Sharing by saying 'Hey Google, start Emergency Sharing'.

Crisis alerts are available in all countries and languages. If your phone is set to a language different from the local language, the alert may show up in your current location's official language instead of your set language.

Turn crisis alerts on or off

1. Open your phone's Personal Safety app  .
2. Tap Features  Crisis alerts.
3. Turn Crisis alerts on or off.

How Google sends crisis alerts

Google manages crisis information from official local sources. If a crisis is posted that affects your location, the Personal Safety app will notify you. Google posts crisis alerts based on various factors, like Internet connectivity in the affected area, official info from governments and other authorities, and the impact on the ground. Alerts are typically available in the primary languages of the affected area and English. Learn more about crisis alerts.

You can quickly dial emergency services while on your phone, even when it’s locked.

Choose connection options with emergency services in the Personal Safety app :

• Fast emergency dialler (FED) lets you quickly call for help with a swipe on a slider. Emergency numbers for your area are listed automatically.
• Traditional emergency dialler (TED) shows a dial pad that you can use to dial emergency numbers.

Pixel phones are set to use FED automatically where it’s available. Learn about FED availability.

• Quick access: To call an emergency number with one action, use the slider.
• Automatic emergency numbers: Your phone finds emergency numbers automatically, even when you travel.
• Multiple emergency numbers: Your phone finds available numbers for your area, like police, fire or medical services. Use the slider for the emergency service that you need.

With the power button (Android 11 and earlier and Android 12 on Pixel 5 and earlier):

1. Hold the power button for five seconds.
2. Tap Emergency.
3. In the emergency menu, use the slider.

With the power and volume buttons (default on Android 12 and Pixel 6 and later):

1. Press the power button and the volume up button at the same time.
2. Tap Emergency.
3. In the emergency menu, use the slider.

Tip: Learn how to check your Android version.

Important: FED isn’t available in all regions or areas. Your operator and other circumstances can limit FED and its availability, even in covered areas.

When FED isn’t available: your phone automatically uses TED, which displays a dial pad that you can use to dial emergency numbers. When FED isn't available, your emergency dialler settings don’t change.

To contact emergency services when you don't have a network coverage on your Pixel phone:

1. Dial 911 immediately.
   • If you don't have a mobile or Wi-Fi network, you'll find an option to use Satellite SOS in the dialler.
2. Tap Satellite SOS   Use Satellite SOS  Start.
3. To describe your emergency, fill in the emergency questionnaire.
4. To share your emergency with your emergency contacts, answer the on-screen questions.
   • To notify your emergency contacts, tap Notify.
   • If you don't want your emergency contacts to receive your location and emergency information, tap Don't notify.
5. To connect to the satellite, follow the on-screen prompts to correctly position your phone.
   • Connection and response times vary based on location, site conditions and other factors.
6. Once you're connected, the emergency service provider should reply via text within a few minutes.
   • To receive replies, stay outside with a clear view of the sky.
   • When you would like to end the satellite text conversation, press the End button and follow the prompts.

Tip: You'll need Google as your default messaging app to avail the service. If you change your default messaging app, you'll get a notification that Satellite eSOS will no longer be available.