Can I silence calls for one person?

There may be times when you want to silence phone calls from a certain person, like an ex-partner, telemarketer, or someone who calls too frequently. While you can’t block specific numbers from calling your iPhone directly, you can use features like Do Not Disturb, Contact Groups, and third-party apps to silence calls from just one person.

Selectively silencing calls can help reduce distractions from unwanted conversations. It also keeps your phone from constantly ringing from particular contacts. This allows you to avoid awkward interactions or repetitive sales calls. Overall, muting calls from certain individuals gives you more control over your iPhone notifications.

Check Do Not Disturb Settings

Do Not Disturb (DND) is a built-in feature on iPhones that allows users to silence calls, alerts, and notifications.

To enable DND for specific contacts on an iPhone:
– Open the Settings app and tap “Focus”.
– Tap “Do Not Disturb”.
– Tap “Allow Calls From” and select “All Contacts” or tap “Allow Calls From” and choose specific contacts you want to allow calls from when DND is enabled.

– You can also customize DND to allow calls from your Favorites contacts or groups of contacts while silencing calls from everyone else.

Enabling DND and customizing it to allow calls from certain contacts is an easy way to silence calls from just one person on an iPhone. With DND on, your phone will not ring for any incoming calls except for the contacts you’ve allowed.

Use Contact Groups

You can silence calls from specific groups of contacts on your iPhone by using the Contact Groups feature. Here’s how to create a contact group and silence calls from that group:

1. Open the Contacts app and tap Groups at the bottom. Tap the + icon to create a new group.

2. Give the group a name, like “Acquaintances”, and tap Add Member to add contacts to it. Select the contacts you want to add.

3. Once your group is created, go to Settings > Do Not Disturb and tap Silence. Under Allow Calls From, tap All Contacts then toggle off the group you want to silence.

This will silence incoming calls and notifications from that entire contact group. You can customize multiple contact groups this way. The contacts will still go to voicemail if they call you.

For more details, see Apple’s guide on managing groups of contacts.

Block Contacts

One of the easiest ways to silence calls from a specific person is to block their contact on your iPhone. When you block a contact, all calls, text messages, and FaceTime requests from that person will be automatically declined and sent to voicemail. They will not be notified that you have blocked them.

To block a contact on your iPhone:

1. Open the Phone app and go to your Recents list.
2. Tap the information “i” icon next to the contact you want to block.
3. Scroll down and tap “Block this Caller.”
4. Confirm that you want to block the contact by tapping “Block Contact.”

Once blocked, the contact’s calls and messages will no longer ring through. You can view your blocked contacts under Settings > Messages > Blocked Contacts. From here you can also unblock contacts when needed.

According to Apple’s iPhone user guide, blocking a contact is one of the easiest and most effective ways to silence calls and messages from a specific person while still allowing their calls to go to voicemail.

Blocked Contacts Still Go to Voicemail

Even if you block a contact on your iPhone, they can still leave a voicemail message. This is because blocking a number on your iPhone simply rejects the incoming call automatically. Since voicemail is handled by your mobile carrier’s servers, the blocked call gets forwarded to voicemail so the caller can still leave a message (Source).

So while blocking a contact stops your phone from ringing and displaying the incoming call, it does not prevent that person from leaving a voicemail. You will still receive notifications of new voicemails from blocked numbers.

Use Third-Party Apps

There are many highly rated third-party apps available to block calls and texts from specific contacts on iPhones:

Robokiller (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/robokiller-spam-call-blocker/id1022831885) – Uses an algorithm to block over 1.4 billion known spam calls and allows you to block specific contacts.

Call Control (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/call-control-1-call-blocker/id1124167631) – Provides smart blocking of known spam callers and lets you block individual contacts.

Hiya (https://www.hiya.com/) – Identifies and blocks spam calls using a crowd-sourced database.

WhosCall (https://line.me/en/call) – Automatically blocks known spam numbers and allows blocking of specific contacts.

Silence Unknown Calls

One way to silence calls from unknown numbers is to send them straight to voicemail. On an iPhone, you can enable a setting to automatically silence calls from any numbers not in your contacts, recent calls, or mailing lists. To enable this:

• Open the Settings app and tap Phone.
• Turn on the switch next to “Silence Unknown Callers.”

Once enabled, incoming calls from phone numbers not saved in your contacts, calls list, or mailing lists will go directly to voicemail. Your iPhone will not ring for these calls. You’ll still receive alerts for voicemail messages left by unknown callers. This can help reduce disruptions from spam calls or unknown numbers. However, it also means calls from new legitimate numbers could go to voicemail, so check voicemail regularly if expecting unknown calls. This setting only applies to direct calls, not calls within apps like FaceTime or third-party messaging apps.

According to Apple Support, “When you turn on Silence Unknown Callers, your iPhone will use Siri intelligence to allow calls from numbers in your Contacts, Mail, and Messages. All other calls will go straight to voicemail.” (Source).

Link Contacts to Voicemail

You can link specific contacts to go straight to voicemail when they call you on an iPhone. To do this:

1. Open the Phone app and tap Contacts.

2. Select the contact you want to link to voicemail.

3. Scroll down and tap “Ringtone.”

4. Under Ringtone, tap “None.” This will silence the ringtone for that contact.

Now when that contact calls, it will go straight to voicemail without ringing your phone. You can still see missed calls and voicemails from these contacts in your call history and voicemail inbox as usual.

According to Apple Support, “When you silence the ringtone for a contact, you won’t get alerts for incoming calls or messages from them” (https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/manage-contacts-iphf3d808dc/ios).

Linking individual contacts to voicemail is useful for blocking nuisance callers or contacts you don’t want to be disturbed by. Just keep in mind they can still leave voicemails.

Considerations

There are some important things to keep in mind when silencing calls on an iPhone:

Make sure you still receive important calls and messages. When silencing unknown numbers or blocking contacts, emergency services, healthcare providers, schools, and work contacts can potentially be blocked unintentionally (Apple Discussions, 2022).

Voicemail will still collect messages. Blocking a number does not prevent them from leaving voicemails, so review periodically to avoid missing anything important.

Contacts may call from different numbers. If a contact has multiple phone numbers, blocking one number may not block all calls from that person.

Scam and robocalls may rotate numbers. Telemarketers and scammers frequently change phone numbers to get around blocks, so you may need to continuously block new numbers.

Test any features before relying on them. Make test calls from different phones to ensure important contacts can still reach you after making any call blocking changes.

While safety is a priority, be cautious of blocking numbers too aggressively. Only silence true nuisance calls to avoid unintentionally missing important calls.

Summary

To selectively silence calls from a specific person, there are several options available on smartphones. The main methods covered include using Do Not Disturb settings to block calls during certain times or events, creating contact groups to mute, assigning contacts to go straight to voicemail, blocking contacts entirely, and using third party apps.

The key takeaways are:

• Do Not Disturb allows muting calls without blocking them entirely.
• Contact groups let you silence multiple people at once.
• Blocking sends calls directly to voicemail.
• Third party apps provide more advanced call management.
• Consider if you want blocked calls going to voicemail or be declined.

By using your smartphone’s native settings or downloading an app, you can selectively silence calls from specific people while allowing calls from others to ring as normal.