Echo warning: Alexa can reveal your secret Christmas shopping, here’s how to stop it

If you own an Amazon Echo and plan to buy some Christmas gifts from Amazon, there a few settings you’ll need to change with smart assistant Alexa. That’s because the beloved AI assistant could accidentally let slip what Christmas presents you’ve bought if you’re not too careful. To make sure your Amazon Echo doesn’t ruin the surprise, you will need to turn off package notifications.

For most of the year, package notifications are incredibly useful. These proactive notifications will let you know when an item you’ve ordered has been dispatched and when it’s out for delivery. If you’re desperate to get your hands on an item you’ve ordered – that’s incredibly useful. But when you’re trying to keep all of your buying habits secret from everyone else, like in the run-up to Christmas Day, it becomes more of a nuisance.

To stop Alexa alerting you when a package is on the way, head to the Alexa companion app on iOS and Android, then tap More in the bottom right-hand corner. Then choose Settings, followed by Notifications and then Amazon Shopping.

Under the section titled “let Alexa say or show titles for items you’ve ordered” you will want to turn off “including items in your shopping cart marked as gifts, or those that might be gifts during major holidays”. Once you have changed this setting, Alexa won’t give you any notifications on any items you’ve ordered that are labelled as gifts, or products that your Amazon Echo suspects is a present.

To be on the safe side, anytime you place an order that is meant to be a gift make sure you clearly mark it as a gift when the item is in your Amazon shopping cart.

As an extra precaution, you can also head back to the Amazon Shopping section of the Alexa app, and in this section toggle off a few other options. In the section labelled “let Alexa say or show titles for items you’ve ordered” you can also toggle off “for items in delivery updates” and “for items in return updates”.

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If you do this, Alexa won’t give you any delivery updates. But you’ll still get the typical email updates and notifications from the Amazon shopping app, so you won’t be entirely in the dark about any upcoming orders.

Doing all this should make sure any orders you’ve placed on Amazon will remain a secret until December 25.

But there’s still a few ways Alexa could accidentally spoil the surprise. One of these is Alexa asking you to rate a product you’ve purchased.

To make sure your Amazon Echo doesn’t ask you to review the Nintendo Switch that’s meant to be going underneath your Christmas Tree, head once again to the Amazon Shopping section in the Alexa app.

Then, scroll down to the Amazon Community Notifications area and toggle off “requests to rate products you’ve purchased”. In the Recommendations & Deals section, you could also turn off “Recommendations and Deals” so you don’t get recommended a product to go with one of your recent Christmas purchases.

And finally, in the Order Updates section you may also want to ask not to receive an update if an item you ordered is out of stock.