Here’s how your Pixel 6 or Pixel 6 Pro could one day save your life

Did you know that your Pixel phone could one day save your life? It’s true! Well, if you have Android 10 and up, that is. In addition to good sense and awareness of your surroundings, the Pixel phone’s Personal Safety app can help you out in unavoidable emergencies or life-threatening situations by way of automation. Today, I’m going to show you how to use it. It’s one of those tools that you’ll hopefully never have to use, but should that day come, you’ll be glad you took the time to set it up!

Pro Tip: If you get a new Pixel device, please don’t forget to set the Personal Safety app up again from scratch (Data doesn’t cloud sync for your privacy)! I forgot to do this on my Pixel 6 Pro, and it could have one day led to regret.

Before we get started, let’s talk about what sorts of situations the app can help you in. Built-in is car crash detection (even when the app is not open or in use), which automatically calls emergency services if your phone detects that you’ve crashed and are unresponsive, emergency real-time sharing of your location and critical information with trusted contacts, an emergency SOS by pressing the power button five times to call emergency services and more, and one of my favorites, the Safety Check.

Safety Check allows you to set a timer on your phone and requires you to check in before it expires to verify that you’re safe. So long as your phone is locked with biometrics or a password, no one else can check in on your behalf, if you don’t check in at all, emergency sharing automatically occurs.

The most common situation I can see this being useful in is when someone goes for a jog in an unsafe neighborhood or at night when they’re hiking in the mountains, taking an Uber or other transport services, and so on. Obviously, it’s better to avoid placing yourself in these sorts of situations, but where it makes sense to add a bit of reassurance, it couldn’t hurt.

Here we go! As a first step, please make sure that you have the Personal Safety app installed on your phone. It does come preinstalled on compatible Pixels, but if you don’t see it, you can download it from the Google Play Store below.

Once you have the app open, you’ll be asked to choose a Google Account with which to set it up. Do so, and the next screen will require you to select one or more people in your life as emergency contacts. These are the people who will be notified by first responders should an accident occur.

Don’t forget: Your emergency contacts can be viewed and called without your device needing to be unlocked. This can be changed in the Personal Safety app’s settings.

Next, you’ll fill out your medical information, including your name, blood type, any known allergies, medications you take, your address, medical notes, and whether or not you’re an organ donor. This information is only stored on your device and is never sent to Google.

Great! Now you’re on the main screen of the app, and you’ll see a few notices. Feel free to dismiss these after you read and comprehend them, and proceed to the big, yellow “Safety check” button on the bottom-left of the screen. A dialogue box will slide up from the bottom, and you’ll be able to toggle this feature on after you choose a reason for your Safety check (or create your own), and a duration as well.

Remember: While Safety check is active, your Pixel device will turn Location Sharing on in Google Maps! This means that your real-time location will be shared with your emergency contacts, but only if you don’t check in before your Safety check timer ends. Otherwise, it remains private.

For the duration, you can choose from a preset of 15 or 30 minutes, or between one hour to eight hours, but you can also choose your own custom time, which includes not only the hours but the minutes as well. Because of this, you can make your Safety checks highly specific.

Finish choosing your emergency contacts just in case you were to miss a check-in. You can also notify these contacts when you start a safety check, or you can leave this toggle off before tapping the blue “Turn on” button at the bottom right.

If you see a large, yellow banner at the top of your screen with the name of your Safety check, then you’re all set! Your device is now not only counting down the duration but actively on guard in order to protect you in this situation! You have a phone icon next to each emergency contact, and a “Call 911” button at the bottom of the screen. There’s also an “Emergency Sharing” button, and a large, red “Stop” button to end the Safety check early.

Upon ending the check or checking in, you’ll be taken back to the home screen of the app, and Google will give you a notification saying “Hope you’re OK”. That’s it! My word of wisdom here is to be absolutely certain that you don’t miss a check-in if you set one up, especially if you’ve turned on the alert for your emergency contacts. You don’t want to worry your loved ones about your health or wellness over being forgetful.

The Personal Safety app also records video automatically in emergencies like car crashes and stores them locally on your device, automatically sharing them with your trusted contacts, and has many other useful features as well, so be sure to check out the Pixel Phone Help page to learn more.

I just want the steps!

1. Download the Personal Safety app on your compatible Pixel phone (It’s preinstalled on newer devices)
2. Open the app and choose a Google Account to use it with
3. Add emergency contacts
4. Input your medical information
5. Tap “Safety check” at the bottom of the screen
6. Select or type a reason for the check
7. Select or create a duration
8. Tap “Next” and then tap “Turn on” (Optionally toggle notify contacts)
9. Tap “Stop” only when you’re safe
10. Don’t forget to check in to avoid unecessary worry!