Google Phone app on Android can auto-filter spam calls to voicemail

It's the year 2018 and for some reason we're still dealing with spam and robocalls. Fortunately, if you use Android, Google's Phone app has a new feature that helps significantly reduce the number of calls that will appear on your home screen. You might still get a voicemail from them now and then, but that's easier to deal with than actually answering the call. The app now has a setting that will detect spam calls and automatically send them to voicemail.

The feature will only work on calls the app believes to be spam, but in those cases the phone won't even ring or vibrate and it won't make notifications of a missed call. Spam callers will still be able to leave to a voicemail, which can be checked from the call history, but even that won't leave a notification, making interruptions almost non-existent.

Once the latest version of the Phone app is installed, just go to the settings menu and the Caller ID & Spam section. Turn on both "Caller ID & Spam" (which warns you of incoming spam calls with a bright red screen) and "Filter suspected spam calls."

While some calls might slip through Google's detection, these can be reported as spam to help improve the system. Just go to the recent calls section, select the call to be reported, and under the menu choose the "Block/report spam" option.

SOURCE Google