How to Set Up Emergency SOS and Medical Information on Android (2026 Guide)

Imagine you are in an accident and cannot speak, or a family member finds your phone and needs to know who to call and what medicines you take. In that moment, the settings you configured months earlier do the talking for you. Android has built-in Emergency SOS, emergency contacts and medical information features — but most people never turn them on. This guide walks you through the full setup in about ten minutes, on both stock Android (Pixel) and Samsung phones, and ends with a simple test routine so you know it actually works.

What Emergency SOS does on Android

Emergency SOS lets you call emergency services quickly, usually by pressing the power button five times in a row. Depending on your phone and settings, it can also send your location to your emergency contacts, sound a loud alarm to attract attention, and start a countdown so you can cancel if you triggered it by accident. The exact options vary by manufacturer — Pixel phones call it Emergency SOS under Safety settings, while Samsung phones put it under Safety and emergency — but the idea is the same: one simple action, even with shaking hands, in the dark, or with a locked screen.

Two things are worth understanding before you start. First, Emergency SOS calls your local emergency number, so it works wherever you are, not only at home. Second, the feature is only useful if someone else can also help: that is why emergency contacts and medical information matter just as much as the SOS button itself. A paramedic who can see your allergies and blood type from your lock screen, and a family member who gets your location automatically, are both part of the same safety net.

Step 1: Add your emergency contacts

Emergency contacts are the people your phone notifies, and the people a stranger can call from your lock screen without unlocking the phone. Choose two or three people who answer their phones reliably: a spouse, a parent, an adult child, or a close friend. Avoid picking someone who travels often without signal or who rarely checks their phone.

1. Open Settings, then search for Emergency or open Safety and emergency.
2. Tap Emergency contacts and then Add contact.
3. Pick your contacts from your address book and save. On some phones this lives inside the Contacts app under your own profile card instead.
4. Tell each person you added them. Explain that they may one day receive an automatic SOS message with your location, and that they should treat it as urgent.

Step 2: Add medical information to your lock screen

Medical information is shown on the emergency screen, so first responders can read it without your passcode. Keep it short, accurate and current. Include your blood type if you know it, allergies (especially to medicines such as penicillin), ongoing conditions such as diabetes or asthma, regular medicines, and an organ-donor note only if it applies to you. Do not include your full address, ID numbers, or anything a thief could misuse — this information is visible to anyone holding your phone.

1. In Safety and emergency, tap Medical information (on Samsung: Medical info).
2. Fill in the fields honestly. If you are unsure of your blood type, leave it blank rather than guessing — wrong medical information is worse than none.
3. Save, then check it from the lock screen: on the lock screen, tap Emergency call and look for View emergency information. If you can see it, so can a paramedic.

Step 3: Turn on Emergency SOS

On a Pixel phone, go to Settings → Safety and emergency → Emergency SOS and switch it on. You can usually choose whether it plays an alarm sound, starts a countdown, and shares your location with emergency contacts after the call. On a Samsung phone, go to Settings → Safety and emergency → Send SOS messages (on newer models, Emergency SOS), agree to the terms, and add the contacts who should receive the message. On both, the trigger is normally pressing the power button five times quickly.

Read each option before enabling it. The alarm sound is useful if you are alone outdoors but can be startling at home; location sharing is the single most valuable option for your contacts, because "I need help" is far more useful when it comes with a map pin. If your phone offers car-crash detection (Pixel phones do), consider enabling that too — it calls emergency services automatically after a severe crash if you do not respond.

Step 4: Test it safely

Once a month is plenty. Press the power button five times and watch for the countdown screen, then cancel it before it dials. Confirm the screen shows the right emergency number and that your emergency contacts are listed. Once a year, ask a trusted person to check your lock-screen emergency information while you watch, and confirm the details are still correct. Phones get replaced, medicines change, and contacts change numbers — a safety setup that nobody maintains slowly becomes fiction.

Keep it updated — a 2-minute routine

Put a reminder in your calendar every six months: check your emergency contacts, check your medical information, and check that Emergency SOS is still switched on after any major software update. Major Android updates occasionally reset safety settings, and a new phone means starting this whole setup again from scratch. The best time to do it is the day you unbox a new phone, before you install anything else.

It takes ten minutes, costs nothing, and you will probably never need it. But if you ever do, those ten minutes will be the most valuable settings change you ever made on your phone. Set it up today — and while you are at it, help a parent or an older relative set up theirs too. They are the people most likely to need it, and least likely to have turned it on themselves.

Quick checklist

• Emergency SOS switched on, with location sharing enabled
• Two or three emergency contacts added — and told about it
• Medical information filled in and visible from the lock screen
• Countdown screen tested (cancelled before dialling)
• Six-monthly reminder set to review everything