Why is my iPhone silencing calls from contacts that are in my contacts list?

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Level 1

74 points

Why is my iPhone silencing calls from contacts that are in my contacts list?

I have no focus mode enabled.

Contact in question is Apple's tech support callback number, and it's been added to my contacts list for years.

The contact is not blocked.

Waiting for a phone call from Apple on a tech support issue, and the call—despite being in my contacts list with no focus enabled, the ringer on, and looking at the phone app with the screen unlocked—shows the "silenced call" banner and immediately disappears.

Why would it silence calls from my contacts, period? I would get that a Focus mode can be configured so it only lets through phone calls from certain people, but that is not the case here. If the phone number is in my list, and there is no focus mode enabled, it should ring. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Why, then is it not?

iPhone 12 Pro Max

Posted on Mar 16, 2022 5:16 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

ManJor

Community Specialist

Mar 17, 2022 11:39 AM in response to THEbdw

Hello THEbdw,

We'd like to help look into this further and determine why your calls are being silenced. You mentioned that the contact has been in your list for years. When receiving a call from this number, do you see the name of the contact, or merely a phone number? If you see a phone number only, this could mean that your Contacts are not syncing properly, which could affect incoming calls using the "Silence Unknown Callers" feature. To test this, if you go to Settings > Phone > Silence Unknown Callers, is that enabled? If so, let's disable it for now and test to see if the same behavior occurs.

If it does not, then we'd suggest following the steps in If your iCloud Contacts, Calendars, or Reminders won’t sync - Apple Support. If you're using a different account to sync your contacts, there are a few steps in that article that can still help. If you are not using Silence Unknown Callers, we'd suggest deleting the contact and creating it again to see if the behavior persists.

Make sure as well you Update your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to the latest available software.

Contact Apple Support if this continues.

We hope this helps.

Cheers.

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Answer 2

THEbdw Author

Level 1

74 points

Mar 17, 2022 11:47 AM in response to ManJor

It shows the name of the contact, and disabling Silence Unknown Callers enabled the call to come through. Contacts are synced (as are all of the iCloud items such as calendars and reminders). Enabling Silence Unknown Callers still silenced this call, and leaving it disabled is a non-starter (like many, I get far, far too many BS spam calls to leave that option disabled).

Contacting support it is, I suppose.

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Why is my iPhone silencing calls from contacts that *are* in my contacts list?

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