What does “Notifications Silenced” mean on iPhone

So, like many of you I tried everything and nothing worked. Eventually, I got in contact with Apple support and what ended up fixing it for me was to turn off the “Share Focus Status” in the contact settings. I even had my wife turn it back on and it doesn’t show that message anymore. See images below Hope this helps!

1. From phone you are seeing this message coming from, open the contact settings for contact seeing the message.

2. Turn the setting off (and back on if you want). This should instantaneously remove the message.

I spent about 3 or 4 hours trying to solve this. This was more of an impactful bug for me than most, as I'm a senior physician and my unclear notification status was creating all sorts of problems for administrators, partners, nurses, fellows, residents, and students. Like many here, I tried turning off everything, but could never get better than "Dr Braindead Mac has notifications silenced". To further complicate the issue, I have become heavily dependent on Apple devices (TVs, laptop, home computer, work computer, iphone, ipad, watch) so I couldn't figure out what device was causing the problem. Sharing here, hopefully this will help others.

The solution was totally counterintuitive. I turned off all the Focus features on my laptop and home computers and iPad, just made these changes on my iPhone (since it was the iPhone upgrade that seemed to start all the nonsense):

First go to Settings > Focus and turn on "Share Across Devices"

Then from same tab Settings > Focus > Do Not Disturb tap "Focus Status"

On that screen, toggle "Share Focus Status" to on.

Now go back to Settings > Privacy > Focus and make sure "Shared With" Messages is toggled on. Now toggling on and off the Do Not Disturb setting will work as intended and people should not see either the "Joe Blow has notifications silenced" or "Notify anyway" warnings when the Focus is off.

I’ve tried all the steps and wound up talking to 1st level support for 2 hours last night. Every step they recommended I have already done. This morning I spoke with the next level up support who verified everything we did previously was correct. We then installed software on my phone so they could diagnose it, we took dozens of screen shots. All this will be sent to the engineers for a permanent solution supposedly. After all this I fixed the problem myself. Focus needs to be turned off on every Apple device you own, phone, iPad, watch, laptop and iMac (this is where I actually fixed the problem) When you are on the Focus screen in settings (iPhone or iPad) tap the do not disturb and delete any people you have, if you have to the right of that any apps listed delete them too. Under option on the same page it should say Focus disabled. When you click Home Screen the buttons should be greyed out the same thing with the Lock Screen. I actually had two things listed below that but I don’t remember what they were I deleted them both.

Go back to where it says Focus in the top left hand corner tap then down at the bottom it says Share Across Devices, turn this off. He is where I think the problem is. If you notice is says Turning on Focus for this device will also turn it on for your other devices. I don’t think this is true. Do these steps for your iPhone and iPad if you have one. If you have the watch make sure in the Focus setting it says mirror my watch. After doing all these things to my three devices and finishing up with support I still had the problem. I got to thinking maybe my iMac has a problem with Focus which I didn’t even realize it used. THIS IS WHERE THE PROBLEM WAS ACTUALLY FIXED.

On iMac go to:

System preferences (the Apple in the top left had corner of your screen)

Look for the Bell icon, Notifications & Focus

There should be two tabs, notifications and Focus. Tap Focus

Do not disturb should be off

Allowed notifications from-delete any people and and apps you have listed

In Turn On Automatically deleted anything you may have set up yourself

Uncheck share focus status

Now the biggie that finally fixed this issue at least for me.

Uncheck Share across devices (which as I said earlier if this was really working once you unchecked this either on your iPhone or iPad it should have also fixed it here unless I’m missing something.

So that worked for me. I have since forwarded this to my Apple case worker but he has not gotten back with me yet. Let me know if this did or didn’t work for you.

Focus may have been a good ideal but it obviously has some bugs in it. I liked the old Do Not Disturb better it was much easier to use.

Thank you, Braindead Mac, for your efforts with the time you spent on this. I followed your instructions completely then did one last thing. I went back to Settings > Focus > Do Not Disturb and turned "Share Focus Status" back to Off. This got rid of the "Notification silenced" note that appeared on my text messages that I sent out. Bravo!! So thank you again.

I was struggling with this too and following all instructions to no avail. Then finally found someone that has the magic.

Go to Settings > Privacy > Focus and make sure "Shared With" Messages is toggled on.

One might think that not sharing focus would then not show you as silenced, so counterintuitive to turn this on. With all my focus deleted and turning this on, now my wife says messages to me are not showing the silenced status.

Go to Settings > Privacy > Focus and make sure "Shared With" Messages is toggled on.

One might think that not sharing focus would then not show you as silenced, so counterintuitive to turn this on. With all my focus deleted and turning this on, now my wife says messages to me are not showing the silenced status.

[Link Edited by Moderator]

I'm also shocked Apple could have such a buggy release of Focus. Here's what FINALLY fixed this for me:

Uncheck that checkbox "Share across devices" on ALL devices! I had unchecked it on my iPhone, assuming that would do it. But I turn DND on and off frequently on my laptop, to hide reminders, and it turns out that pushes to my phone and then notifies people I have notifications silenced! So all devices do not have to agree to share that state 🤬

If you have your sleep schedule thing set up in apple, it automatically mutes your notifications after a certain time (whatever you have set up). try turning off the sleep schedule. that’s what worked for mine.

I’m seeing this bug too. My GF gets these messages with every text to and from me, just like other posters here. Despite the message, I get all notifications on my end. This lasts for a few days then resolves itself, but eventually returns.

Worth noting, I have my GF on emergency breakthrough, so her texts should NEVER be silenced for me.

UPDATE

I just went to Settings > Messages and disabled the Focus setting. Immediately the message stopped being sent to my GF. I then turned it back on and all seems good so far. So while it is fixed for me now, I expect this issue to return unless addressed by Apple.

I was having these issues as well. After a months of trying everything I thought about checking out my Apple Watch. The watch actually had focus off. I turned it on and now that “notifications silenced” is finally gone!

What a mess. We spent the last hour trying to troubleshoot this. Nothing worked. Husband had issue on his iphone SE 2020 and no matter what we tried we still got same message. My iphone 8+ had no issue regardless of my settings, whether focus was on or off or shared. Finally we stumbled on turning off his scheduled Do Not Disturb settings and magically the notification was gone! We turned the schedule back on and all is fine. For now the issue is resolved but seriously, Apple this is a FAIL. How many people will have to waste an hour or more? Most will never resolve it, some may tie up Apple Support if they have the patience. It was not broken, Apple. DO BETTER! - Pulling our Hair Out in New Jersey!

Braindead Mac figured it out and I was able to get mine fixed up. Here’s what you do.

You have to go to Settings>Focus and then click Share Across devices.

Then go to Settings>Privacy>Focus (right at the bottom) and click to turn on for Messages which on my phone is the only app that looks at my focus status.

This worked to fix the problem for my fiancée and I. My fiancée had to turn the show focus OFF and then ON again to work. Just turning it OFF was not enough to fix it but as soon as she turned it ON again the notifications silenced message disappeared.

Just to be 100% clear… are you adjusting the Focus settings on the phone receiving to silenced notifications, or the phone that sends the texts that get marked silenced?

You have to toggle the Focus settings on the phone that SENDS the texts, which then get labeled as silenced. The receiving phone has nothing to do with this issue.

Pull down menu from top

look for half moon

tap

the word focus

not the moon

secret menu comes up

tap settings

you’ll see 12:00 am to 12:00 am set

set bottom number to like 06:00 am

focus is set for 12:00 to 96;00 now

next select people that aren’t focused out during focus hours they may call

also you can select apps I selected messenger snd message’s