Can't disable Phone Link from starting automatically

I found the solution! At first, I was putting in all the settings I thought I could possibly put in on my phones end to NOT connect unless I told it to connect. And then on my computers end I was going to "Startup" in the task manager and disabling Phone Link, but sure enough, soon as I'd fire my computer up, it would automatically start and link. Then I'd shut it off on my computer end, but if it was still open on my phone end then computer end would just re-open and reconnect. SUPER FRUSTRATING.

OK HERE'S THE FIX: (I'm in Windows 11 fyi, but I imagine 10 will be similar). I went to search (Magnifying glass on taskbar) and typed in "app settings" and what popped up was "Apps & Features". Clicked on that, opens up, and you get an app list, you can scroll down to find it or just type in the app search bar "Phone Link". Click the 3 little dots to the right and click on "Advanced Options". Then you'll see "Background apps permissions" and a drop down menu. It's default setting is "Power Optimized (recommended)". Change that to "Never".

Boom, rebooted my computer. Let the startup fully run, no sign of Phone Link. But then I went and opened it up purposely and it fired right up!

VIDEO LINK HERE OF THE STEPS

I found the solution! go look at my comment on this thread. I made a video, it's still processing on youtube but will be in 4K when it's done (it's in 360p right now and ya can't really see what's going on. only a 30 second vid though so hopefully it'll play in 4K soon)

I found the solution! https://youtu.be/nao7oCt01cA

Thanks for trying and finding a fix.

I think this is similar to what Doug Henry1 and I have found for Windows 10. My version is 21H2, OS build 19044.1949

In windows settings, it is under "Background apps"

We can switch off all apps running in background by turning on or off for

"Let apps run in the background"

or we can go under "Select which apps can run in the background"

and there is a list of apps there including "Phone Link" to turn it off.

Turning Phone Link off has worked for me and Doug. We don't want it to start nor run in the background.

For SofiaEngvall75, it seems to work at first but something else is starting it up again. Her case is that she would like it to run in the background as well.

I did turn off from the mobile as well so neither side should be triggering.

Thanks for replying but this is what I did (though on windows 10 it's a on/off option as the startup one below it).

Have a nice day! :)

/Sofia

Yes, I want to be able to choose when to use the app. For example the common cut and paste can be very useful. Though I don't want popups when I have quit the app to do screen recordings for example. It has lots of bugs in other places as well so I hope the dev team will fix them all if we report the bugs and are a bit patient. The fact that you can't uninstall was a bit of a surprise though... :)

Replying here to say that this is a bit dumb haha! I have the same issue, this is as bad as windows 8 systems never actually turning off and just going to sleep. There needs to be a way to disable the app permanently without uninstalling :/

I'm annoyed.

Kudas to all posters attempting to find a fix.

Disabling whether the app may run in the background is not a 'fix' for it forcing it being started on startup. You should be to prevent the app from starting at startup, while still allowing it to run in the background.

Microsoft needs to draw attention to this.

Hi,

So I've run into this weird problem that when I turn on my laptop, Phone Link starts to run in the background. The app doesn't appear in the Startup tab in Task Manager, and it's not in the folder that opens if I run "shell:startup". In the app itself, I can't see any options to disable automatic startup either.

I would be grateful if you could help me find a solution for disabling Phone Link from starting automatically.

I was having the same issue and I found this post. None of the answers helped me haha but I decided to open the phone link app via Microsoft store, and I found a page listing my phone, so I removed it, restarted the computer, and no more phone link on the background!

How can I get rid of this in Phone Link? Annoying