Screen Distance is supposed to be a health helper, reminding you to keep your phone at a decent distance, especially for kids. The thing uses the TrueDepth camera to kinda “look” at how close you are and then nags you if you’re closer than 12 inches for too long. Not sure why it works sometimes and not others, but what it does is basically tell you to back off when it notices you holding the phone too close. If you’re doing lots of bedtime browsing, or just forget to keep your phone away, you’ll see this alert repeatedly, which gets kinda annoying fast.
But here’s the thing — if the alert starts to pop up constantly, especially during weird moments, it might be time to disable it. Just remember that turning it off isn’t ideal if you’re worried about eye health or trying to prevent myopia, but sometimes, it’s necessary to avoid constant nagging or false positives. So, if you’re ready to turn off the feature for good, here’s how to do it without any fuss.
How to Disable ‘iPhone May Be Too Close’ Screen Distance Alert?
Disabling this feature is pretty straightforward, and it’s mainly in the Settings. It’s in the Screen Time section, which is kinda buried if you don’t know where to look. Once you find it, you can turn off the monitoring and hopefully stop the alerts. Expect to lose that little health reminder, but at least the phone won’t keep pestering you about it. Sometimes, on one setup it worked immediately, and on another, you might need to reboot after toggling things off.
Here’s the rough idea:
- Open the Settings app.
- Scroll down and tap on Screen Time.
- Tap on Screen Distance. If you don’t see it immediately, make sure Screen Time is fully enabled first (sometimes it’s off by default).
- Find the toggle for Screen Distance and switch it off.
Done. If you ever want to turn it back on, just come back and toggle it on again in the same menu. Yeah, it’s just a matter of flipping a switch. Because of course, Apple hides some of these options unless you dig deep enough.
Just a side note — keeping this feature on might be smarter for anyone worried about eye health or looking to form better habits. Turning it off should be a last resort if it’s just causing more annoyance than help.
If you get stuck or it doesn’t seem to work, checking for software updates or resetting your Settings might do the trick. Sometimes, a reboot helps because these notification systems can be kinda flaky on iOS.