Wunter8 Dev

I have been a longtime fan of Tasker, and I use it to automate various things on my phone. But once I upgraded to the Pixel 5, I couldn't silence my phone anymore.

Typically, if I wanted a task to silence my phone, I would use the Sound Mode action under Audio Actions and select Mute. However, once I got the new Pixel 5, that action no longer worked. I was able to use Sound Mode to put my phone on vibrate and to turn on the sound/disable silent mode, but it would not let me enable silent mode.

I looked online and a lot of people just suggested putting the phone in Do Not Disturb mode. However, that prevents notification icons from showing up on the always-on display.

I will often work with my phone on the desk under my monitor so I can see any new messages or emails that come in during the day, but I don't want my phone chiming or vibrating on the desk in case I'm in a meeting or something. If I turn on Do Not Disturb, I don't see the notifications until I unlock the screen.

Eventually I came across an obscure solution online and adapted it slightly to my needs. Honestly, I'm still not sure why it works. It involves 4 different actions, so I created a Task called Silent.

Here's what you need to do:

This is what you should see after adding the 4 actions

When you run the task, you will quickly see Do Not Disturb turn on then off. But when it turns off, for some reason, silent mode is turned on, as shown by the bell with a line through it.

After running the task. Notice the Silent icon

I set up a trigger to run this task when it detects an NFC sticker that I put on my desk. Now, whenever I put my phone down under my monitor, Tasker will automatically enable silent mode for me.

I set up another event to turn the sound back on when I pick up my phone using the Significant Motion event.

I spent such a long time trying to get Tasker to silence my phone. This solution has worked flawlessly for me and, as a plus, doesn't affect any of my volume levels. Let me know if you found a different way to do this or if this was helpful for you!