How do I permanently disable Do Not Disturb in Focus mode on iPhone 14 running iOS 26.2?

Focus and Do Not Disturb setup has been made much more flexible to meet user demands for additional features, but this has come at the cost of much more complication. To get it working again, do these steps ONCE:

• Tap Settings
• Tap Focus
• Tap on any Focus settings that you will never use and remove them (you can add them back later if you change your mind, and even create new, custom ones)
• Tap Do Not Disturb
• Turn off Intelligent Breakthrough & Silencing (unless you want it after reading the description)
• Tap People
• Tap Allow Notifications From
• If anyone is listed who should not call you when DND is on delete them; if you don’t want any calls from anyone, any time, delete all people
• Tap the dropdown next to Allow Calls From and choose Allowed People Only
• Optionally, tap on Apps, then Allow Notifications From and don’t add any apps.
• Turn off Repeat Calls

All of the above is a one-time setup. After that, turn DND on or off with a quick tap on the Control Center DND button circled in green below:

You can optionally set one or more schedules by going to:

Settings/Focus/Do Not Disturb/Set a Schedule.

There are many other features, but these instructions put it back to the way it worked in simpler days. Over the years Apple has had a steady stream of requests for DND enhancements, and they seem to have incorporated all of them.

LD150 wrote:

I don't have Intelligent Breakthrough & Silencing on my SE3, I wonder if iphone 14 has this feature which sounds like AI? Or like me still has Smart Activation?

I believe it's an Apple Intelligence feature.

I don't have Intelligent Breakthrough & Silencing on my SE3, I wonder if iphone 14 has this feature which sounds like AI? Or like me still has Smart Activation?