How to Turn Off AI in Gmail: Disable Gemini, Summaries, and Help Me Write (2026)
April 24, 2026 · 9 min read
Gmail keeps adding AI features, and many of them are on by default. If you find Gemini suggestions, AI summaries above your emails, Help Me Write prompts, and the side panel distracting, you can turn them off. This guide covers every AI surface in Gmail and how to disable each one, on desktop, iPhone, Android, and Workspace.
Two Things to Know First
Gmail's AI features come from two different settings groups. Some are controlled by Smart features and personalization, a single master toggle. Others, especially anything labeled Gemini, are controlled separately and may depend on whether you have a personal account or a Google Workspace account.
A personal Gmail user can turn off most things from settings. A Workspace user often needs an admin to disable Gemini fully, because Workspace admins control AI access across the organization.
Disable Smart Features and Personalization (Master Toggle)
This one toggle turns off the largest group of AI features at once: Smart Compose, Smart Reply, nudges, automatic email categorization, and AI summaries that appear inside threads.
On desktop:
1. Open Gmail.
2. Click the gear icon in the top right.
3. Click See all settings.
4. On the General tab, scroll to Smart features and personalization.
5. Uncheck the box.
6. Scroll to the bottom and click Save Changes.
Gmail will reload and most AI suggestions will stop appearing.
Turn Off the Gemini Side Panel
The Gemini side panel is the star icon on the right side of Gmail. It can summarize threads, suggest replies, and answer questions about your inbox.
For personal accounts: the panel appears for Google One AI Premium subscribers. To hide it, you can collapse the side panel using the small arrow at the bottom-right of Gmail. To remove it entirely, downgrade or unsubscribe from Google One AI Premium.
For Workspace accounts: ask your admin to turn off Gemini app access for your account, or for the whole organization. The setting is in the Google Workspace Admin Console under Generative AI.
Turn Off AI Summaries Above Emails
AI summaries are short blurbs Gmail shows above long emails or threads. They are part of the Smart features group, so unchecking Smart features and personalization removes them.
If you only want to remove summaries while keeping other smart features, there is no separate toggle. The master switch is the only control. This is one of the biggest user complaints about Gmail's AI rollout: granular control is missing.
Turn Off Help Me Write
Help Me Write is the Gemini composer assistant. It appears as a pencil-and-stars icon when you start a new draft. (Full deep dive: our Help Me Write guide.)
For personal accounts: Help Me Write is part of Google One AI Premium. If you do not have a subscription, it should not appear at all. If it does, check that Smart features and personalization is off and that you are not signed into a different Google account in the same browser.
For Workspace accounts: ask your admin to disable Gemini for your account in the Workspace Admin Console. There is no per-user toggle inside Gmail itself.
Turn Off Suggested Replies and Smart Compose
Suggested replies are the three short reply buttons at the bottom of an email. Smart Compose is the gray inline text Gmail offers as you type.
On desktop:
1. Settings → See all settings → General.
2. Find Smart Reply and select Smart Reply off.
3. Find Smart Compose and select Smart Compose off.
4. Save Changes.
On the Gmail iOS app:
1. Tap the menu icon in the top left.
2. Scroll down and tap Settings.
3. Tap your account.
4. Tap Smart Reply and turn it off.
5. Tap Smart Compose and turn it off.
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Open in Chrome Web StoreOn the Gmail Android app:
1. Tap the menu icon in the top left.
2. Scroll down and tap Settings.
3. Tap your account.
4. Uncheck Smart Reply.
5. Uncheck Smart Compose.
Turn Off Polish, Formalize, and Other Help Me Write Tones
These only appear when Help Me Write is enabled. Disabling Help Me Write disables all of its sub-features, including Polish, Formalize, Shorten, Elaborate, and tone adjustments.
Turn Off AI Training on Your Gmail Data
Google states that Gmail content is not used to train its general AI models, but Smart features rely on automated processing of your messages. The clearest way to opt out of this processing is to turn off Smart features and personalization. That single toggle stops Gmail from analyzing message content for predictive features.
If you are a Workspace customer, your admin can also restrict AI access at the organization level. Open Workspace Admin Console, go to Apps, then Google Workspace, then Gmail, then User settings, and review the Smart features and Generative AI sections.
Mobile-Specific Steps
The Gmail mobile apps mirror most of the desktop settings, but a few are buried. For broader iPhone or Android AI cleanup beyond Gmail, see our iPhone guide and Android guide.
Turn off AI summary on Gmail iPhone:
1. Open the Gmail app.
2. Tap the menu icon, then Settings, then your account.
3. Find and uncheck Smart features and personalization in this account.
4. Find and uncheck Smart features and personalization in other Google products.
Turn off AI summary on Gmail Android:
1. Open the Gmail app.
2. Tap the menu icon, then Settings, then your account.
3. Tap Data privacy.
4. Toggle off Smart features and personalization.
5. Toggle off Smart features in other Google products.
Turn off Gemini in the Gmail iOS or Android app: there is no in-app Gemini toggle. The Gemini panel appears based on your Google One or Workspace subscription. Hide it by collapsing the side panel, or remove it entirely by downgrading the subscription or asking your Workspace admin.
Google Workspace Admin: Disable Gemini Across the Organization
Workspace admins have a separate set of controls in the Admin Console.
1. Sign in to admin.google.com.
2. Go to Apps, then Additional Google services or Generative AI.
3. Find Gemini app.
4. Turn off service status for the organizational unit you want to restrict.
5. Save.
To restrict Gmail-specific AI: go to Apps, then Google Workspace, then Gmail, then User settings, then Smart features and personalization. Set the policy for your organization.
What Stays On Even After All This
A few Gmail features use machine learning but are not labeled as AI features and stay on regardless of these toggles. Spam filtering is the main one. Most users want this on. Phishing detection is another. There is no user-facing toggle to turn these off, and turning them off would be a security risk.
If Settings Keep Re-Enabling
A recurring complaint is that Smart features turns itself back on after a Google update. If this happens to you:
1. Sign out of all Google accounts in the browser.
2. Clear cookies for google.com and gmail.com.
3. Sign back in with only the account you want to manage.
4. Re-apply the Smart features toggle.
5. Repeat for each account.
For Workspace accounts, this kind of reset usually means an admin policy is overriding your personal preference. Ask your admin to set the policy to off rather than user choice.
Why This Matters
AI features in Gmail save time when they work and waste time when they do not. AI summaries that misread the email, suggested replies that sound nothing like you, and a side panel that keeps reappearing are the kind of low-grade friction that adds up over a workweek. Turning them off is not a rejection of AI. It is a rejection of AI applied to a place where you already know what you want to do.
If cleaning up Gmail leads you to also clean up Google search results, our Search Cleaner extension hides Google AI Overviews and 24 other search elements with individual toggles. Same idea, applied to search.
