iPhone call filtering

DaveWT

Well-Known Member
Without getting into a discussion of whether I should be doing this, let me explain what I am trying to do: I use my iPhone very lightly. It is here for my convenience, not the convenience of others. So toward that goal I had wanted to restrict incoming phone calls to people in my contacts. Calls from people or companies I do not know, I choose to ignore (in most cases.) As far as I can tell this is handled by the Do Not Disturb settings in the iPhone but I am confused by the choices to accomplish this. In general I have Do Not Disturb turned OFF but I have Scheduled turned on and a time range set there. I believe that keeps even people in my contacts from calling during those hours. But further down in Settings > Do Not Disturb I recently discovered that I had "Allow Calls From" set to "No One". That was a surprise and I would assume I would never get a call from anyone with that setting. And yet I can still receive a call (from our home land line at least). So I checked my wife's iPhone and her setting in this case is to "Favorites". I guess I would have expected both of us to have this setting pointing to "All Contacts" perhaps (if we wanted companies in our Contacts to reach us, even if not in Favorites.)

As I am expecting a call tomorrow from someone not listed anywhere, I have temporarily changed this setting to "Everyone" which I am hoping will allow the call to come in. But not sure after that how to best accomplish the stated goal. (i.e. if the setting of "No One" really didn't stop incoming calls, am I not understanding this at all?)
 

DaveWT

Well-Known Member
I have found another setting that no doubt has a bearing on what I want to achieve...

Settings > Phone > Silence Unknown Callers

I suspect this is the one I really should be playing with rather than the Do Not Disturb choices.
 

chas_m

Well-Known Member
Yes, I have “Silence Unknown Callers” on and this is effectively the filter you talked about — only people in my contacts list actually ring, any other calls go to voicemail directly.

For me, “Do Not Disturb” is only on during my resting hours. Of course, people marked as favourites can still get through.
 

DaveWT

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the clarification, Chas,
My problem now is to remember where that setting lives for the few times I am expecting an important call from a number not in my contacts.
 

chas_m

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the clarification, Chas,
My problem now is to remember where that setting lives for the few times I am expecting an important call from a number not in my contacts.
Or you could add them to your contacts temporarily (if you know the number/person that will be calling).
 
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