How do I silence a call with the volume button?
What Does It Mean to Silence a Call?
Silencing a call means muting the ringing or alerting of an incoming call on your phone. When you silence a call, you stop your phone from ringing, vibrating, or making any other sounds to notify you of the incoming call.
Specifically, silencing a call on a mobile phone refers to pressing the volume down or power button to dismiss the ringing when a call comes in. This will stop your phone from ringing without rejecting the call entirely. The call will still be incoming, but you have manually muted the audible ringtone alert.
Silencing a call is different from ignoring a call and letting it go to voicemail. With silencing, you are only turning off the ringing – the call is still live and ongoing. Ignoring it sends the caller directly to voicemail.
Silencing a call is a convenient way to quickly mute an incoming ringtone if you are in a meeting, at the movies, or anywhere that a ringing phone would be disruptive or inappropriate. The key distinction is that the call is not ended, you have just turned off the audible alerting.
When Would You Want to Silence a Call?
There are many situations where silencing an incoming call can be useful. One common scenario is when you are in a meeting or classroom. Having your phone ring in the middle of an important discussion or lecture can be incredibly disruptive. By silencing incoming calls, you avoid interrupting the speaker and other attendees.
For example, when you are in a business meeting, you will likely want to mute any incoming calls to avoid unprofessional interruptions. Similarly, if you are a student in class, you will want to silence your phone so it doesn’t distract you or the teacher during a lesson. This allows you to focus fully on the content being presented without disruptions from your phone.
Overall, muting your phone ringer during meetings, classes, or other focused gatherings is considerate to others. It helps minimize disturbances and disruptions at inappropriate times. Using your phone’s silencing options allows you to get the most out of these focused sessions without annoying rings interrupting you or others.
Using the Volume Buttons to Silence a Call
One of the easiest ways to silence an incoming call on an iPhone is by using the physical volume buttons on the side of the device. When you receive a call, simply press either the volume up or volume down button once to mute the ringing. This will stop the audible ringer, but the call will still display visually on the screen.
Pressing the volume down button is the most direct way to mute the ringer. As soon as you press it, the ringing will stop immediately. The call screen will still be visible, allowing you to view the caller ID and choose whether to answer or decline the call.
This method works whether your iPhone is locked or unlocked. As long as the call is ringing on your iPhone, you can press either volume button to silence it quickly and easily, without having to wake your device or take any additional steps.
Once you silence the ringer with the volume buttons, the call will stay muted even if you don’t answer it right away. This gives you time to finish what you were doing before deciding to accept or decline the call. The caller won’t know you’ve silenced the ring, they will hear normal ringing on their end.
Source: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/answer-or-decline-incoming-calls-iph3c9947bf/ios
Silencing with Other Physical Buttons
In addition to the volume buttons, there are a couple other physical buttons on the iPhone that can be used to silence incoming calls.
The side button or power button on the iPhone can also be used to mute calls. Pressing this button once will silence an incoming call. You can still answer a muted call until it goes to voicemail by swiping to answer. The side button works to mute calls whether the iPhone is locked or unlocked.
According to Apple Support, “You can still answer a silenced call until it goes to voicemail.” (Source)
So in summary, the side button/power button provides another quick way to mute incoming calls on the iPhone, along with the volume buttons.
Silencing from the Lock Screen
When you receive an incoming call while your iPhone is locked, you’ll see the call appear on your lock screen. This allows you to view the caller ID and choose whether to answer or ignore the call without having to unlock your phone.
If you want to silence or mute an incoming call from the lock screen, you can simply swipe left on the call alert. This will reveal options to decline the call or mute it.
According to an Apple Support discussion thread, swiping left over an alert or group of alerts allows you to access options to “Deliver Quietly”. This mutes the call so it continues to ring on the caller’s end, but your phone will not ring audibly.
You can also tap on the caller ID or elapsed time displayed on the lock screen alert. This will open the call controls, including the option to mute the ringer as described in this Medium article.
Muting from the lock screen allows you to quickly silence a call before answering or sending it to voicemail, without having to unlock your iPhone.
Silencing from Within an App
When you receive a call while using another app on your phone, the call notification will typically appear as a banner or pop-up over the app you’re in. There are a couple ways to silence or dismiss this notification from within the app:
- Swipe the notification banner upward to dismiss it. This will remove the notification from your screen but keep the call ringing silently in the background.
- Some apps have notification settings where you can disable call notifications. Look in the app’s settings or notification settings to mute call notifications.
For example, on an iPhone you can go to Settings > Notifications > select the app > toggle off “Allow Notifications”. This will prevent any call notifications from appearing when you’re using that particular app.
The call will still be incoming, but you won’t get a visual banner or sound alert while using the app. You can then decide to leave the call ringing in the background or silence it through other means like the volume buttons.
Using Do Not Disturb Mode
One of the most convenient ways to silence incoming calls on your iPhone is to use Do Not Disturb mode. When enabled, Do Not Disturb blocks calls, alerts and notifications from making sounds or lighting up your screen. This allows you to avoid disruptions when you need to focus or get uninterrupted sleep.
You can enable Do Not Disturb manually from Control Center or the Settings app. There are also automatic rules you can set, like turning it on during certain hours or when you’re at a specific location. With iOS 15 and later, Do Not Disturb integrates with Focus modes, so you can customize it to silence only the apps and people you want.
Keep in mind that basic Do Not Disturb mode doesn’t completely block calls – they still come through visually on your screen. To stop calls altogether, you need to adjust Focus or Do Not Disturb settings to limit notifications from everyone, or disable repeated calls. Learn more in Apple’s Do Not Disturb support article: https://support.apple.com/en-us/105112
Silencing with Accessibility Shortcuts
The Accessibility Shortcut setting allows you to set up custom shortcuts for quickly enabling accessibility features on your iPhone. One handy option is to set up a shortcut to mute or unmute the ringer on incoming calls.
To set this up, go to Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut. Here you can choose “Ringer On/Off” as one of the options for your triple-click shortcut. Now when you quickly triple-click the side button, it will toggle your ringer between muted and unmuted.
This can be useful if you want to quickly silence your phone when a call comes in. Just triple-click the side button without needing to look at the screen or open any other menus. It’s an easy way to mute calls discretely when needed.
You can customize the Accessibility Shortcut to include other options too like VoiceOver, Magnifier, or even quickly launch Guided Access. The shortcut gives you fast access to the accessibility features you use most often.
Just keep in mind that if you already use the triple-click for other purposes, like launching the accessibility features normally, this will override it. Make sure to set it up in a way that works for your needs.
Managing Emergency Bypass
Some calls will still ring when silenced. Apple’s Emergency Bypass feature allows calls from designated contacts to override the Silent and Do Not Disturb modes on your iPhone. If you have added contacts to the Emergency Bypass list in Settings, they can still call and their calls will ring even when your ringer is off.
You can manage which contacts have Emergency Bypass enabled by going to Settings > Sounds (or Sounds & Haptics) > Emergency Bypass. Here you can toggle bypass on or off for individual contacts. Emergency Bypass will allow calls to ring from those contacts even when your iPhone is silenced.
If you want your phone to be fully silenced with no possibility of incoming call alerts, you will need to disable Emergency Bypass for all contacts. However, use caution as this means no contacts will be able to reach you audibly in an emergency if your ringer is silenced.
For more details, see this Apple discussion thread on configuring Emergency Bypass.
Troubleshooting Silencing Issues
If you are having problems getting your iPhone to silence calls properly, there are a few things you can check:
First, make sure the mute switch on the side of your iPhone is not enabled. Sliding this switch to the muted position will mute all sounds and calls, regardless of your settings. If the switch is already muted, slide it back to unmute.
Next, go into your Settings app and check your Do Not Disturb and Phone settings. Make sure Do Not Disturb is not schedules or turned on, as this will override your call settings. In the Phone settings, check that you don’t have Silence Unknown Callers enabled, as this will automatically silence any calls not in your contacts (Source).
You can also try resetting your network settings by going to General > Reset > Reset Network Settings. This will reset any issues caused by your network or carrier settings (Source).
If you still can’t get calls to ring properly, contact your carrier or Apple Support for further troubleshooting. There may be an underlying issue with your software or hardware causing the problem.