Blocking numbers on Apple’s iPhone

[Mike Mercury]

Voice calls and Texts; sometimes the easiest option is the best way

https://www.theverge.com/23053288/ho...r-apple-iphone

Whether you’re trying to get rid of spam or avoid hearing from a former friend or ex, blocking someone’s phone number is a vital tool for helping to preserve your privacy. We’ve covered various methods of protecting yourself from robocalls, spam, and other daily annoyances. But blocking a number is often the quickest and easiest way of shutting down unwanted digital intrusions.

When you block a number, you’ll no longer receive phone calls, texts, or FaceTime requests that come in from the blocked number. The person at the other end will go straight to voicemail whenever they call you, but this is their only clue that they’ve been blocked. Texts will still appear to go through as normal — even though you don’t have to deal with them.

Blocked numbers are still able to leave voicemails, but these won’t be shown in the standard visual voicemail list. Instead, they’re separated into a “blocked messages” section that you can choose to ignore completely.

On an iPhone, there are multiple methods for blocking a number, but I’m going to cover the two apps where you’d most often want to do so.

How to block a number from the iPhone’s Phone app

Open the Phone app.
Tap on the Recents tab.
When you see the number you wish to block, tap the encircled i on the right side of the screen.
At the bottom of the next screen, you’ll see the option to Block this Caller. Tap on that, and the number will be unable to reach you.

How to block a number from the iPhone’s Messages app

If someone is annoying you via text (or you want to cross off another source of spam), it’s easy to block a number directly from Apple’s Messages app.

Tap the sender’s information at the top center of the conversation.
Then tap on Info.
Again, at the bottom of this page, you’ll see the option to Block this Caller in red text.

If you want to restore someone’s ability to reach you, it’s easy to remove any number from your blocked list.

Open the Settings app.
Then tap on Phone.
Select Blocked Contacts.
On the next screen, you’ll see a list of numbers you’ve blocked. There are two ways to remove one. You can either tap the Edit option and then the red minus symbol next to the number you wish to unblock, or, as a faster alternative, you can swipe left across any number to unblock it.

[Louie Detroit]

Good info. I have a couple of people blocked on my iPhone, I wish they provided at least rudimentary info on when the blockheads tried to contact me.

[BayouCountry]

Setting silence unknown callers stopped most of the annoyances for me.

[99 pewtercoupe]

Originally Posted by BayouCountry

Setting silence unknown callers stopped most of the annoyances for me.

I used that for quite a while and it worked well. Unfortunately, last year my wife’s car died on her while she was out. Her friend let my wife use her phone to call me but I didn’t have that number in my contacts list so her call went straight to VM. I didn’t even notice it until her friend brought her home. Needless to say she was not happy

[Iron Chef]

I have an android but I also block annoying calls. Problem is they just move to another number and call again. So it's kinda futile, but I still do it.

I read that not answering calls and letting them go to voicemail is the best thing to do because then you won't be flagged as a "working number" by the software. But there was also a study done that said this didn't make any difference. Robocalls are an annoyance that we have to put up with.

[dvarapala]

Originally Posted by Iron Chef

I have an android but I also block annoying calls. Problem is they just move to another number and call again. So it's kinda futile, but I still do it.

^ this

Most telemarketing SPAM calls come from spoofed numbers, so blocking them does absolutely ZERO good. The approach that works best is to whitelist numbers that you DO want to hear from and block everything else by default. If you're in a situaiton where you have to regularly receive calls from unknown numbers then you're SOL.