Did you link your Android smartphone or your iPhone with your Windows PC? You don’t like the Phone Link app and want to disable it? Maybe it’s lagging and crashing a lot, so you’d rather remove your phone and disconnect it from your computer. It doesn’t matter what phone you use. Whether you want to know how to unlink an iPhone from an HP laptop or how to disconnect an Android phone from a desktop computer, the process to unsync a phone from Windows is the same. Here’s how it works:
NOTE: This tutorial covers unlinking Android smartphones and iPhones from Windows computers. All the steps are the same for Windows 11 and Windows 10, with the sole note that you can unlink iPhones only from a Windows 11 PC. Why? Because you can only link an iPhone to a Windows 11 computer. 🙂 For this guide, I’ve used a Google Pixel 4a and a Samsung Galaxy SE 20 FE (both with Android 13), as well as an iPhone 12 mini (running on iOS 16.5.1).
Search and open the Phone Link app on your Windows PC
After you launch the Phone Link app, its window should display the actions and options available for your linked phone.
The Phone Link app for Windows
The next step is to unsync your smartphone from your computer, whether it’s an Android phone or an iPhone. Here’s how:
The Settings button from Phone Link
On the Settings page of Phone Link, select My Devices, and the right-hand pane shows you all the iPhones and Android smartphones linked to your Windows PC.
Access the My Devices list
Choose the smartphone you want to unsync from your computer, and click or tap the More options button (it looks like an ellipsis) in its top-right corner.
Click or tap the More options button of the phone to unlink
The menu that shows up has only one option: Remove. Click or tap on it to unlink your smartphone from your computer.
Choose Remove to unsync a phone from Windows
Phone Link then asks you if you’re “[...] sure you want to remove this device,” and you also get instructions for the next steps, which I’ll also cover in the next section of this tutorial. For now, if you’re certain you want to unlink your phone from your Windows PC, click or tap the “Yes, remove” button.
Confirm the unlink by pressing Yes, remove
The action is immediate: the selected smartphone is now unlinked from your Windows computer. However, you’re not done yet, as you also need to remove the link from your smartphone. Here’s how:
Open Link to Windows and go to Settings
On the Settings screen, tap the Linked computers entry. Then, a new page should open, where you can see the computer(s) to which your Android device is connected. Tap the “three buttons” icon next to the computer you want to unlink.
Access Linked computers and tap the settings icon next to the PC
A menu with two options shows up: Disconnect and Remove this device. The first one is just a temporary measure that simply disconnects your phone from your computer. The option you need in order to permanently unlink your Android smartphone from your computer is the second one: Remove this device. Tap on it and then confirm the action by tapping on the Remove button. As you can see in the next screenshot, once you do that, the linked computer “[...] will be removed from your connected devices list.”
Choose Remove this device and tap Remove
That’s it: you’ve now unlinked your Android phone from your computer. If you don’t intend on using the Link to Windows app to sync your phone to other computers, you could also completely uninstall the app from your smartphone. If you need help with that, here’s how to uninstall apps on Android.
Access Link to Windows on a Samsung Galaxy
The previous action opens the Link to Windows settings screen: on it, tap your Microsoft account under Linked Account. Then, on the next page, tap the cogwheel icon next to the name of your linked computer.
Tap your account and then on the settings icon next to the PC
Link to Windows then loads a new screen for your linked smartphone, with a single option (at the bottom): Remove. Tap it and confirm that you want to delete the computer from your list of connected devices by tapping Remove again.
Choose Remove and confirm unlinking
After the computer is unlinked from your smartphone, the Link to Windows app/feature tells you that you need to remove the phone from the Phone Link app on your PC too. However, if you’ve followed the steps of this tutorial, you already did that, so you can simply tap on Got it and resume using your smartphone as usual.
Finish removing this device on your computer: tap Got it
Unfortunately, unlike on regular Android, Samsung Galaxy devices don’t allow you to completely uninstall the Link to Windows app, as it’s a built-in feature of the user interface. All you can do is disable it by either tapping on its icon in the quick settings panel or by accessing its full settings (as shown previously in this section) and turning off the Link to Windows switch.
Turn off Link to Windows on a Samsung Galaxy
Uninstall Link to Windows from an iPhone
If you need help with that, here’s how to delete apps on iPhones.
Step 1. Open the Phone Link app on your Windows PC
The first step is to open the Phone Link app on your Windows computer. While there are many ways to do that, one of the easiest is to type “phone link” inside the taskbar Search field, and then click or tap the Phone Link result.Step 2. Unlink the phone from your laptop or desktop PC
In the Phone Link app, click or tap the Settings button in the top-right corner of the window.Step 3. Remove your phone from the Link to Windows app
This step differs depending on whether you’ve linked an Android smartphone or an iPhone to your Windows computer. Furthermore, there are two different approaches for Android devices, as some of them (Microsoft Surface Duo, as well as select Samsung Galaxy and Honor devices) come with the Link to Windows app/feature built-in. Follow the steps appropriate for your smartphone:Step 3.1. How to remove your phone from Link to Windows on Android
If you’re using a smartphone with Android that is not a Samsung Galaxy, Honor, or Surface Duo device, start by opening the Link to Windows app on it. Once launched, tap the Settings button in the top-right corner of the screen.Step 3.2. How to remove your phone from Link to Windows on a Samsung Galaxy, Honor, or Surface Duo
If you happen to own a Samsung Galaxy device or a smartphone with the Link to Windows app built-in (Microsoft Surface Duo or Honor devices, for instance), this step is slightly different from the regular Android. On your smartphone, access the quick settings and touch and hold the Link to Windows icon. In some cases, this icon could display the name of your linked computer instead of the Link to Windows text.Step 3.1. How to remove Link to Windows from an iPhone
The Link to Windows app for iPhone is much simpler than the one you get on Android smartphones. If you’ve unlinked an iPhone from your laptop or computer, you don’t need to do the same on your iPhone. But, if you don’t intend on linking your iPhone with any other Windows computer, you may want to uninstall the Link to Windows app completely.
Discussion (37)
Phone Link is a problem with my doctor’s telemedicine site. The Phone Link app tries to force the use of my smartphone for a video device instead of using the native camera on the laptop. The doctor’s telemedicine app does not offer a selection option for devices, it uses whatever the PC tries to use. With the smartphone linked, the app tries to use the phone and will not offer any option to do otherwise except by completely removing my smartphone from the Phone Link app. Phone Link needs to be better designed so that you can decline to use the linked phone if you do not want to. Nobody wants their PC to insist on using another device without user control.
I want to unlink it because I didn’t activate it in the first place. Another name comes up when the Phone page opens itself. I didn’t even know that page existed. Not happy, it is creepy and I want to try get rid of that unknown name.
I removed it because it consistently rerouted the sound output away from my hearing aids and into the less effective Windows speakers.
I can’t send messages
I can’t make or receive calls on my computer because although it says it is connected.
Privacy issue. Don’t want to link my mobile to a company-owned PC/NB.
my phone is locked ever since I tried to link it, it is impossible to use it now, completely ruined my phone very disappointing
I unlinked my phone in the Windows 10 settings as described. Unfortunately it still keeps linking. I’d love to use the features, but there are too many glitches. The newest one is that if I open my computer while on the phone it interferes with the call and the person I’m talking to can no longer hear me.
From the sound of all the negative replys about this app, I wont be installing MS cell phone bag of tricks. Thank all for the info….What ever happened to the 10cent phone calls???
Every time phone rings, it crashes my HP Zbook. The fault is always bluetooth drivers. I have latest ones, still crashes. Disaster of an application. Good Riddance.
Thanks, this was useful.
Some of my apps on my phone kept closing after I linked. Unlinking seems to have fixed that issue.
Unlinked due to huge battery drain on my brand new android phone
my computer doesn’t run windows 10, and that is intentional, because windows 10 is a miserable OS that hasn’t improved a lick in the time they’ve dumped it. i don’t even know what my phone’s connected to at this point, and apparently i can’t disconnect except from the windows 10 side, which again i don’t have… bloatware at it’s finest.
if anyone swipes my phone it instantly becomes a huge security risk to my PC , my documents and pictures and music, in other words it becomes a virus or a Trojan horse that’s the way I feel about it and also i don’t trust Microsoft behind a b
dime turned sideways !
I want to remove this link because ever since I installed this a few days ago when my I had a Windows 10 update, I’ve been getting spammed with messages from unknown sources containing unknown links. I’ve never received this kind of crap until I linked my phone to my PC. I don’t know if the app is also linking to my email’s spam folder or what. As far as I can tell the app is crap.
Ever since installing my phone has been inexplicably dropping calls when I move from open windows on PC.
I wanted to unlink because the app never worked properly. All I wanted to do was move photos from phone to the laptop…fail.
I don’t want my personal messages to pop up as notification when I am projecting the screen for a presentation. I know I can disconnect momentarily or adjust some notification settings, but it is annoying to do it every time, not to mention it sometimes reconnect on its own.
Micsoft is a big headache That want to run everything you do I would like not to be hook to anything of their their cause nothing but headaches
When deleting email from PC it deletes from my phone and vice versa and that is not what I want to happen
Your emails are on an email server on the internet. If you delete an email from one device, it gets deleted from all devices where you access that email account, because it gets deleted from the email server.
The call function didn’t work with a Bluetooth headset – so that completely negated the reason for me being interested in this app.
The unlinking didn’t work properly, and every time I go back into the Your Phone app on my PC, the call/message details are still there. I don’t think it’s connecting to my phone any more because I uninstalled the Android app and had the devices forget their Bluetooth connection, but the info is still visible in the Windows app. Very, very disconcerting.
It was really helpful. Thanks for the nice article
Thank you! I was actually searching for this.
I don’t want my computer to ring when I get a phone call. That’s ridiculous.
Whenever I try to download any app from google play on my pc it automatically gets downloaded in my phone. That’s the reason I want to unlink my phone from pc.
Battery usage
Unlinked because of phone notifications interrupting work flow. Also felt uneasy about possible greater security risk.
I have tried this 4 times and my phone keep reconnecting. The computer shows its unlinked but after a day or so it relinks.
As you mentioned above, one can only see pictures and a few documents. I wanted to see my videos on the computer. As always, Microsoft created a totally useless feature. It is time to change to a different computer with a different platform, like Apple.
i wanted to UNLINK because i noticed i was linked. and it twas NOT my computer.
thank you..thank you….
thank you very mutch.
the hackers have left the building
I’m trying to unlink a hacker from my Android, so I don’t know if this will even work…(backwards!)
I wanted to unlink my personal android phone because this windows 10 machine is for business not personal use.
I followed the instructions and it says that my phone is not linked to the computer however i am still receiving my personal text message notifications from my android phone on my windows 10 notification machine. So i will need to figure out how to make this stop.
I couldn’t find my app menu anymore
I unlinked my android phone because it automatically changed all my apps around, made them larger, and made navigating my phone cumbersome.
I’m concerned about my personal data as well as my browsing history….