I used to get tons of spam calls. Every day I could count on at least three or four of those calls interrupting my day. Because of those calls, I decided not to answer my phone unless the caller was a legitimate business or a saved contact. That led to a lot of voice mail but, thanks to Android's automatic transcription, it was pretty easy to verify whether or not a caller was of a spamious nature.

So, when Google introduced the Call Screen feature on Android, it was a game-changer. I would go so far as to say that feature has been probably my favorite addition to the platform. Not only has it helped me avoid 99% of the spam calls I receive, but it has also dramatically reduced the number of spam calls I get. 

How? One of the features of Android's Call Screen is the ability to tell the caller to remove me from their list, without having to talk to them. And it works! Combining the call screening with the "request to remove my number from call lists" feature, has reduced the number of spam calls I receive to near zero. I can't remember the last time I received a spam call.

Yes, it works that well.

Call Screen is also easy to use and enabled by default, so all you have to do is sit back and let Android take care of everything.

Of course, there are options. You see, recent iterations of Android ship with automatic call screening enabled. The screening of calls happens in the background, without your interaction. If you're afraid that will cause you to miss certain calls, you can disable that and take care of the call screening manually, which is just a matter of tapping Screen Call when a suspect call comes in. Otherwise, you do nothing. The caveat to the manual option is that it's not available for every device. So, if your Android phone doesn't offer manual call screening, you'll have to stick with the automatic option.

Before I show you how to make that change, know that Call Screen is available only in the following countries:

• Australia
• Canada
• France
• Germany
• Ireland
• Italy
• Japan
• Spain
• UK
• US

Manual call screening is available only in the US and Canada, on selected Android devices, and with a SIM card from countries where Call Screen is available.

With that in mind, let me show you how to configure Android Call Screen.

How to screen your calls on Android  

Configuring Android's Call Screen feature

What you'll need: The only thing you'll need is a supported Android device in a country where the feature is available. That's it. Let's get to the configuration.

And that, my friends, is all there is to screening calls on your Android device. As I said earlier, this feature has dramatically reduced the number of spam calls I receive, which means (for me) this feature is a must.

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