How to Turn Off Roaming on Android

Last Updated: April 2, 2018 Tested

This wikiHow teaches you how to turn off roaming on an Android phone. When traveling, if your phone is in an area where your mobile provider doesn't provide service, you can incur roaming charges when calling or using data outside of your network. To avoid fees, you can prevent your phone from using data or voice calls while roaming, as well as turn off the automatic download of multimedia (MMS) texts when roaming.

Method 1

Method 1 of 2:

Turning Off Roaming

1
Open Settings
. It's the app with the gray gear icon located usually in your app drawer.
- You can also access Settings by swiping down from the top of the screen and tapping the gear icon
  .
2
Tap Network & Internet. It's the first option at the top of the settings menu.

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3
Tap Mobile network. It's the second option from the top of the page.
4
Tap the switch
for "Roaming" to the OFF
position. The knob will slide to the left and turn from blue to gray when this option is disabled. You will not be able to make calls or use data when in a roaming area.

Method 2

Method 2 of 2:

Turning Off Auto-Download MMS When Roaming

1
Open Messages
. The Android Messages app icon shows a white speech bubble on a blue background.
2
Tap ⋮. It's the three-dot icon in the upper-right corner of the app. This will display a drop-down menu.
3
Tap Settings. It's the second to last option in the drop-down menu.
4
Tap Advanced. It's the last option at the bottom of the page.
5
Tap the switch
for "Auto-download MMS when roaming" to the OFF
position. The knob will slide to the left and turn from blue to gray when this option is turned off. When disabled, multimedia messages (MMS messages containing files, pictures, or videos) will not be automatically downloaded when your phone is roaming. Instead, you'll need to tap them manually to download them.