Manner mode silences a phone's ringtone and notification sounds and signals incoming calls by vibration alone. It is used on trains, in meetings, at the cinema, and in hospitals, wherever sound would disturb the people nearby. "Manner mode" is Japanese-coined English; English speakers would say "silent mode" or "vibrate mode".
The habit took hold in Japan because expectations about phone etiquette in public are unusually strong. As mobile phones spread in the late 1990s, ringtones and conversations on trains became a recurring complaint, and each railway operator worded its own request for restraint. In 2003 the 17 railway operators in the Kanto region aligned the wording of their onboard announcements, and the message of setting the phone to manner mode and holding off on calls spread from there. As of 2026 the same request is still made on board, although the exact wording differs from operator to operator.
How you turn it on depends on the handset. iPhones that still have the ring/silent switch on the side toggle with that switch alone; on models where an Action button replaced the switch, you either assign silent mode to that button or use Control Center. On Android, the panel that appears when you press the volume keys, or the sound settings menu, does the job. Phones also offer a fully silent mode that holds back notifications as well, and Do Not Disturb style focus modes that let calls through only from chosen contacts.
Two points are worth knowing. First, some sounds ignore manner mode. Earthquake early warnings and J-Alert emergency broadcasts deliberately override it with a forced alert tone, because the information can be life-critical. Alarm clocks usually override it too, since alarm volume is managed separately from the ringer, so if you must not make a noise in a meeting you have to switch the alarm itself off rather than rely on manner mode. Second, vibration is not silence. A handset buzzing on a hard desk can carry further than a ringtone, so in genuinely quiet places turn vibration off as well and rely on the screen. See phone etiquette basics for more.