Blocked Contacts Limit Reached

Chris Winkler1 wrote:

There were only 9 contacts & 1400 unknown in Mail blocked, and it did not touch the 18 contacts and 3,151 phone blocked. I deleted 1 of the known contact in mail, and it did not delete in phone blocked contacts.

Is there any other way to get them off the phone besides 1 @ a time?

Also, are you NOT syncing mail and contacts between your iPhone and your Mac? I currently have a little over 700 blocked on my iPhone. I see the same number on my Mac. I'm not concerned though as I will likely never reach the blocked contacts limit as I learned long ago that blocking Spam Calls is pointless.

Ps: NEVER assume the person you're responding to, is a "bro."

Here’s an easy solution: don’t answer any numbers you don’t recognize. If it’s a real call the caller will leave a voice message and you can call them back.

I have difficulty understanding why it is so difficult for people to ignore a phone ringing. Well, maybe not.

Back in early landline days phones didn’t ring; the caller had to shout into the phone to get someone’s attention. Callers adapted to a recognizable shout: “Halloo”: a fox hunting call. (Only people rich enough to go fox hunting had phones.)

Progress marched on, and the phone company chose to make phones ring. They experimented with different volumes and pitches; the goal was to find a sound hard to ignore, but not so annoying that people would smash the phone. Which is how the traditional ring was born.

in my country, if the law enforcement has to call me back, they inform me it will be from a no caller ID number to avoid the numbers they used being spoofed by scammers, there is no cellular security that stops them from making the call looks like it's from your parents or kids phones.

lobsterghost1 & IdrisSeabright, it’s not just phone numbers, it’s emails, too—which adds up to THOUSANDS easily. And fyi, the only two options on iPhone are 1. Block and 2. Report Spam & Block—if there was a way to ONLY report spam, we would do that, but those of us who have reached our limit, selecting Report Spam & Block gives us the same notice of reaching our blocked limit so who knows if it’s actually being reported for spam? If there was a way to easily delete in bulk on iPhone, that would be ideal for those of us who do not have a Mac. And, btw, please don’t talk in such a condescending way like we’re ridiculous for blocking. LONG before we knew that it was useless to block a phone number or email (and we were getting dozens of spam a day), we were told to block (that’s why it’s even an option), so we blocked people, and it adds up quickly over years.

So, unless there’s a way to bulk remove blocked contacts on iPhone, deleting one by one to remove thousands is not gonna happen, and like Chris Winkler1, I have no idea what my limit is I’ve reached because I deleted 20+ so far and I still can’t block somebody I want to. IMO, there shouldn’t even be a limit to blocking if we want to, to help keep down the spam and deter them from trying.

deejme wrote:

lobsterghost1 & IdrisSeabright, it’s not just phone numbers, it’s emails, too—which adds up to THOUSANDS easily. And fyi, the only two options on iPhone are 1. Block and 2. Report Spam & Block—if there was a way to ONLY report spam, we would do that, but those of us who have reached our limit, selecting Report Spam & Block gives us the same notice of reaching our blocked limit so who knows if it’s actually being reported for spam? If there was a way to easily delete in bulk on iPhone, that would be ideal for those of us who do not have a Mac. And, btw, please don’t talk in such a condescending way like we’re ridiculous for blocking. LONG before we knew that it was useless to block a phone number or email (and we were getting dozens of spam a day), we were told to block (that’s why it’s even an option), so we blocked people, and it adds up quickly over years.

So, unless there’s a way to bulk remove blocked contacts on iPhone, deleting one by one to remove thousands is not gonna happen, and like Chris Winkler1, I have no idea what my limit is I’ve reached because I deleted 20+ so far and I still can’t block somebody I want to. IMO, there shouldn’t even be a limit to blocking if we want to, to help keep down the spam and deter them from trying.

No one is being condescending in any way. I too once thought blocking numbers was the way to go. But I learned it doesn't do anything to stop spam calls. It's just a fact. If you took it as condescending, that's on you.

I'm well aware there are numbers and email address in the blocked list. I'm lucky as I have a MacBook Pro and I can delete multiple contacts on my Mac and yes, I understand that's not currently possible on an iPhone. But then, no one here posting is in any way associated with Apple, so we can't do anything to make a feature happen on iPhone. Only Apple can do that and currently, it's not an available option. Complaining about the inability to mass delete contacts here on this forum, won't be seen by anyone at Apple you'd want to see it.

Feel free to share your thoughts with Apple using this link --> Feedback - iPhone - Apple

The more people who provide feedback using the link, the more likely Apple will notice people are asking for help with this. Being annoyed with me or any user on a user to user only forum, however, won't get you anything.

If I didn't have a Mac and I needed to delete enough contacts to reduce the limit, I'd set aside a few minutes of the day for a few days to delete contacts. I was able to delete about 100 contacts quickly on my iPhone, just to see. It would only take a few days with only a few minutes each day to significantly delete contacts.

deejme wrote:

it’s emails, too—which adds up to THOUSANDS easily.

Email spam should be handled using whatever system your email app offers. If you're using Apple Mail, see here:

Report and reduce spam in iCloud Mail - Apple Support

Filter emails in Mail on iPhone - Apple Support

And fyi, the only two options on iPhone are 1. Block and 2. Report Spam & Block—if there was a way to ONLY report spam, we would do that, but those of us who have reached our limit, selecting Report Spam & Block gives us the same notice of reaching our blocked limit so who knows if it’s actually being reported for spam?

To tell the truth, it probably doesn't matter much because, as I keep pointing out, the numbers aren't real. Just delete them and go on about your life. The only thing you can really do about spam is not respond.

Pmdarby wrote:

Why is there a limit? This needs to be addressed and changed immediately!

Why are you telling us this? This is a user to user only forum. Apple isn't here and won't see you want anything addressed or changed. We users certainly didn't have anything to do with a limit. And we certainly can't do anything to change it.

Feel free to tell Apple what you think they need to do here --> Feedback - iPhone - Apple

Out of curiosity, why do you need more than 3000 blocked contacts? Did you read any of the replies in this thread, which had you actually read, you'd learn that if you block spam numbers, you're wasting your time. Read the thread. It's only two pages.

Pmdarby wrote:

Why is there a limit? This needs to be addressed and changed immediately!

It stops users who think they are controlling Spam by blocking numbers. That is ineffective when the sending number/email is just spoofed and completely made up, where you are likely never to even receive any other communication again from that same location. It is just a text screen creating when spammers send out their communications. Your friends number can even be spoofed and a recent scam even spoofed the users own email address in an attempt to convince them that their account had been hacked.

There has always been a limit, so what has changed immediately for you? Is it that now there is a message telling you that the limit has been reached, where before nothing happened when the limit was reached and users thought they were still blocking numbers, even though they were not. That should tell you how ineffective it is blocking numbers for Spam control, because they had thought it was still working.

Pmdarby wrote:

Why is there a limit? This needs to be addressed and changed immediately!

There is a limit to everything in life. Whether the limit 3000 or 10,000 or 100,000 there are users who will think it isn’t enough. If there was no limit you could fill up all of your iPhone’s storage with numbers that will never call you again. Then you would complain about why you had no free storage. 3000 is a reasonable compromise.

Mac Jim ID wrote:

It stops users who think they are controlling Spam by blocking numbers. That is ineffective when the sending number/email is just spoofed and completely made up, where you are likely never to even receive any other communication again from that same location.

This begins to remind me of when Apple removed the "Bounce" feature from Mail. There were people who believed that meant they would get even more spam. No matter how many times they were told it wasn't an effective anti-spam measure, they remained irate.

Kayak_Salida wrote:

My contact list was blocked after Apple sent me an upgrade. It’s another software bug that Apple.com is becoming famous for. **** sad. Time to switch phone manufacturers.

No one here on this user to user only forum honestly cares what phone you choose. You also clearly didn't read past the first post. Feel free to do as you please. It's your money.

Kayak_Salida wrote:

My contact list was blocked after Apple sent me an upgrade. It’s another software bug that Apple.com is becoming famous for. **** sad. Time to switch phone manufacturers.

That is a great idea, also review the Android/Samsung Support forums and you will find posts there saying users are going to switch to the iPhone. Nobody really cares what you do. I bet you can even find a promotion from a cell provider that will give you a free phone and/or pay for you to switch to them.

OK, I need to know how to delete all the blocked numbers or emails that I have on my phone and I’ll never use it again because obviously it’s it’s not really unnecessary thing to do because it doesn’t do anything. How do I delete them all?

DAVEKK wrote:

OK, I need to know how to delete all the blocked numbers or emails that I have on my phone and I’ll never use it again because obviously it’s it’s not really unnecessary thing to do because it doesn’t do anything. How do I delete them all?

Read the thread. It's only two pages long.

misterarthur wrote:

Won't work on my M4 MacBook Air.

• What do you have showing at Mail > Settings > Junk Mail > Blocked > Manage Blocked Contacts? or you can access the same screen by going to  > System Settings > Privacy & Security > Blocked Contacts.
• Are you unable to select one blocked number, then Shift-Click another to select all numbers in between?