Why is my iPhone silencing calls?

Have you checked Settings > Phone > Silence Unknown Calls and made sure it was turned off?

This is a user-to-user technical support site operated by Apple, no Apple management will see your comment. I personally think you should buy what meets your needs and don’t care what that is.

I didn’t know it happened on an update and couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t getting anyones calls. This was exactly the issue I had too and couldn’t figure out. “Silence Unknown Callers”. Thanks for posting this!

I’ve had the same problem and it seems to be that the “Silence Unknown Callers” feature must be off. In my case it was “On” but I’m not sure if it was enabled due to an update or if I enabled it myself and don’t remeber. To try this go to: Settings>Phone>Silence Unknown Callers and check if it is “on”, if so, turn it off.

I hope this helps at least some of you.

It seems like it’s a Carrier setting automatically turned on by the Carrier. In Settings > Phone > my ‘Silence Unknown Callers’ was Off but I had a additional drop down called ‘Call Blocking & Identification’ that had ‘Silence Junk Callers’ turned on & I had to turn it off.

I had this too, I noticed that under PHONE, Allow Calls From, it was set to Favorites. I think this is what you need to check.

Check in the Phone settings for Silence Unknown Callers. If that is set to ON then anyone not in your contacts goes to Voicemail.

I had this issue as well but found that going to

Settings, then

ScreenTime, then

Always Allowed

enables me to add all the apps l need notifications from when phone is locked. Hope this helps!

Under settings, select Phone.

Scroll down to “silence unknown callers” -uncheck it

Go to settings and then on phone, turn off "Silence Unknown Callers".

Thanks. My Silence Unknown callers was turned on. Hopefully turning it off has fixed the problem.

If you have your iphone set to face recognition, your phone is picking up that recognition and sees you looking at the iphone on another app or such and then silences the calls. Go to Settings> Face ID & passcode. Disable the Attention aware feature. This will stop the automatic silencing.

mosonmo wrote:

this feature is so annoying, the engineer should really be fired, it is a phone... it is good if it only blocks spam, but it blocks all Unknown calls even from valid callers, and I missed several important calls due to this feature

It is called a FEATURE. You have the OPTION to block calls from numbers not in your contacts. If you don’t want to use this FEATURE go to Settings/Phone and TURN IT OFF!!!!

That is not the right solution. Check your ring tone setting in Settings/Sounds & Haptics and while there select a ring tone and choose Classic→Old Phone, as it is the loudest; when you tap it you should hear it. Also check the Mute switch on the left side of the phone near the top; it should be towards the screen. Then, while on the Home screen, press the Volume Up button until the “thermometer” shows maximum volume. If the volume button does not display the volume level go to Settings/Sounds & Haptics and make sure Change with Buttons is on.

I am replying to this issue about unknown callers being silenced. My reply relates to Silent mode, not unknown callers, but it may help those confused by online instructions to use the Do Not Disturb settings in relation to Silent mode:

The Do Not Disturb settings, such as Allow calls from Favorites or two calls in a row WILL NOT work when you have switched your phone to Silent. It will only work when you are in Do Not Disturb mode—if you don’t also have it on Silent.

I think this is a terrible thing—that whenever we put our phones on Silent using the switch absolutely NO-ONE can get through with an audible ring NO MATTER WHAT. At most you’ll hear a vibration. Per Apple Support, there is NO way to get an audible ring from either Favorites, Emergency Contacts or Groups while in Silent mode.

The only way to get around this is to NEVER switch your phone to Silent at night, but to use the Do Not Disturb feature instead. But that takes extra steps. 

If you have any questions about this please ask me. Online articles will contain the wrong information.

If you want emergency calls to always be audible start using Do Not Disturb instead of the Silent switch. In that mode you can hear even the first call from Favorites, or Contact Groups if you choose those in the Do Not Disturb settings.

Apple should really allow some exceptions to Silent mode similar to the exceptions for Do Not Disturb.

I've been having the silent caller issue for a while. A temporary fix I came across is to go Mobile data > Mobile data options > Voice and data > change down to 3g. It works but at some point (after a switch off?) the problem returns. Grim that such a piece of so called high tech fails on making a simple phone call. I don't know where the fault lies - Apple or the network provider.

(Mobile data = Cellular data in US)