Google is slowly rolling out its new “Verified Calls” service, a kind-of supercharged Caller ID that should at least let Android users know whether the number that’s blowing up your phone is a legitimate business or not. As an added bonus, businesses using the service can even list a reason for calling, which will appear right on your phone’s screen.
It’s unclear just what hoops a business will have to jump through in order to get set up to use Verified Calls, but whether this takes off or not, there are a few things you’ll want to do in order to be able to receive this extra information on your Android.
To start, you’ll need Google’s Phone app, which comes preinstalled on many—but not all—Android phones. If you’re rocking a Samsung, you’re not going to have the app by default. You should be able to install it right now (at least, I was able to on my Galaxy Note 20). If you can’t for whatever reason, give this another week or so before you try, as Google says it’ll be making this app available for “even more Android devices” soon.
Once you’re ready, pull up Phone and tap on the triple-dot icon in the upper-right corner. Tap on Settings, and then tap on “Caller ID & spam.” Enable all of the options you can:
And that’s it! You should now see verified calls pop up if, or when, a business attempts to use this feature to reach you. Now, one bit to clarify: This feature won’t cut down on annoying robocalls and spam, because it doesn’t block unverified businesses (as nice as that might be at some future point).
If you’re looking to keep your phone from ringing all the time, then the other features you see should help limit robocalls in addition to any others your cellular carrier or other third-party apps provide. (I mainly use Verizon’s Call Filter app and silence unknown callers on iOS, but have also tried Hiya in the past before it became a subscription app.)
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