What does "notifications silenced" mean in Messages?

I am having the same issue. I have no Focus status turned on, am not in DND but my contacts see this message at the bottom of texts. They've sent me screenshots. I still get the messages right away, but it's confusing. I have them as favorites as well. Not sure what the issue is.

I have the exact same issue with my son. It tells him notifications are silenced and they are not. And he is literally the only one. I have turned all of them OFF. And tried deleting the message thread from both phones. And tried restarting, and updating, and putting him on my second line (dual sim phone) and its the SAME THING!!! Please fix this obnoxious issue!!!

heptacat wrote:

This works on mine, but no promises for others as I still do not understand SMS messages, and surely do not get the whole ”Focus” feature. I only know that it is frustrating.

1 - Go to Settings

2 - scroll down to Messages

3 - Turn on Send Send as SMS

*Again, no promises here! This was simply me going through clicking things on and off and suddenly it seems to take care of the problem.

The only thing "Send as SMS" does is, if it's on, tell the phone to resend an iMessage as an SMS if it fails to send as an iMessage. It is likely that changing this setting isn't what fixed it. But, as I'd recommend people leave it on all the time, seems like a very reasonable thing to do.

This really is annoying. I wonder what version of phone this is happening to. I have an iPhone 13. It’s not happening to me but to my two friends that have iPhone 13 Pro. They’re missing work calls for goodness sakes and calls and texts from VIPs aka ME!!!!!

It’s a problem on my iPhone 8 Plus also. This Focus “feature” is a fiasco as far as I am concerned. It is unnecessarily confusing and, in my opinion, completely unnecessary. Apple needs to take care of this ASAP. It is causing major problems for many people.

I found that my friends saw that my notifications were silenced. However, I was still getting the messages. I had zero focus or DND features turned on. I simply went to the settings and turned off the feature to notify users when in focus mode. They no longer see the message now.

i had this feature turned on in hopes to notify if I was “at work” or “working out” and it did, but seems it remained on after these events. Maybe it wasn’t ready for prime time yet.

Try going to Settings -> Focus -> Do Not Disturb

from here under Options, do you have Focus Status turned on or off?? If you have Focus Status on it will show this notification silenced on other phones.

My phone tells my friends all day long that my notifications are silenced but Focus is definitely off. I have turned the phone off and on several times but it still shows I have notifications silenced. I have had this issue since Apple did their update to Focus. There are people all over the internet with the same issue, when does Apple plan on putting in a fix for this?

I've spent the last few days looking at all the various fixes.

I've tried them all and, as with many others here trying to fix this, none of them work.

I firmly believe it's a bug that's somehow related to Apple's new 'Focus' app and the way the app has been integrated across the platform. -- I would suggest if you want an answer to add to the growing list of comments.

My guess is that may be the only way to elevate this to the ivory tower.

I’ve also had this happen but with a slight variation! I have had DND enabled but suddenly text notifications started coming thru before the end of the DND! But not to all texts, only certain ones-these are not from my listed favorites either! My husband gets the ‘notification silenced’ from me and it is SO annoying!

Except that 100% of the people with the problem here all said the phone isn't set to silent mode. Like mine is not. I hear the message come in.

But some, notice SOME of my contacts see the notifications silenced in the chat window.

So to recap the other 100+ people who posted. Focus off, do not disturb off. Not all contacts see the message, just some.

RamblerMan905 wrote:

Except that 100% of the people with the problem here all said the phone isn't set to silent mode. Like mine is not. I hear the message come in.

Silent mode (flipping the switch above the volume buttons) doesn't, to the best of my knowledge, activate this message. Only Focus (formerly Do Not Disturb) does.

So to recap the other 100+ people who posted. Focus off, do not disturb off. Not all contacts see the message, just some.

Including yourself, less than 60 individuals have posted in this thread. And, not all of them have precisely the same issue. In fact, the original poster never said that the person from who they were getting the message had Focus turned off. A couple of people figured out their issues.

RamblerMan905 wrote:

I mentioned the SMS mode as he said it "all of a sudden appeared". It also all of a sudden went from SMS to iMessage at that point when Molly replied.

Regardless, it was the original question. Anyone who has a different problem should really have started their own thread. It's generally more productive than posting in a thread that is only tangentially related. Nonetheless, some people in this thread have found resolutions.

RamblerMan905 wrote:

Oooops, that was a major mistake on my behalf.

Sorry.

No you didn't say but the person I replied to did. Din't expect somebody unconnected to that to comment on the silent mode in my reply I guess.

It's a public thread. And, when troubleshooting, it's important to use the correct terminology.

Apple please fix this, both my wife and I have this issue. She uses a 13 Pro max and I use a 12 Pro. I work in the information security world and she is a freelance writer… I’m telling you this to inform you both of us know how technology “works” and this is broke. Conversations are silenced for no rhyme or reason. This is broke.

Please fix!