Maybe you have previously silenced your phone and cannot unsilence it or maybe your phone has just decided to silence itself, we know this can happen with technology from time to time. Thankfully, with just a few clicks you can have your phone unsilenced.
Read this article to find out how to unsilence your phone using different methods and what to do when you can’t seem to find the problem, let alone fix it.
How Do I Unsilence Calls on My iPhone Using Do Not Disturb?
This is a clever feature that Apple introduced several years ago and since then, it’s just got better and better. Since the latest update (iOS 15.3.1) the feature is now called ‘focus’ when you view it in the control center.
“Do not disturb” is a simple switch that you can turn on and your phone silences all calls, texts and notifications during the period when “do not disturb” is on.
It’s handy for when you want to run into a meeting and haven’t got the time to go through your phone and turn off calls, texts and notifications.
It also comes with a great feature where you can select some contacts that don’t get silenced at all. Handy for letting calls and texts come in from your loved ones or important work contacts for example.
So, how do we turn this feature off, and back on again when we need to? Well, there’s a couple of ways to do it.
First, you need to ensure that “do not disturb” is enabled and you can see that from your home screen if the small moon icon is in the middle of your screen, under time and date then “do not disturb” is enabled.
The easiest way to disable it is to slide down from the top right-hand corner of your lock screen to the control center. There you will see the word ‘focus’, as we mentioned above this is the new word for “do not disturb” in the control center.
If you click the moon icon there you will see it unhighlight and therefore the “do not disturb” will disable.
This now means that you should be able to receive texts, calls and notifications on your phone. The calls will have a ringtone if you have one set up, as will the texts and notifications.
If your calls are still silent, but appearing on your screen, head to the next step…
How to Simply Unsilence My iPhone Using the Mute Button?
Accidentally muting your phone can easily happen with an iPhone, this is because the small switch located on the side of the iPhone can easily be pushed to the wrong side, we don’t think this is a great feature but nevertheless…
If your phone was silencing calls and you have ensured that do not disturb is off, then try and check if your phone has been silenced this way instead.
Hold your phone in front of you and on the left-hand side, above the volume setting, there is a small little switch, not so easy to spot.
Flick that switch up, so there is no red background. When the switch is down you will see a little bit of red and that means it is silenced, we don’t want this right now so keep the switch up.
Now, any calls you received should ring with your allocated ringtone or vibrate if you don’t have a set ringtone.
How to Unsilence Calls Through the Volume Settings?
If you have tried both methods above: do not disturb it off and your mute button is up then it may be your volume settings that are the problem.
Head to your settings and then sounds and haptics, ensure that the volume for ‘ringer and alerts’ is high enough so that you can hear it. If this was down right at the bottom then this was probably the issue.
Another easy way to adjust this volume is to open your phone to the home screen and then use the volume buttons on the side to adjust the ringer volume easily.
How to Unsilence Unknown Callers?
If your phone allows your contacts to call you and you get the ringtone and vibration but not calls from unknown numbers it could mean that you have the ‘silence unknown callers’ enabled.
To disable this, head to your settings and scroll down to the phone icon, near the bottom of that page you will find the silence unknown callers button, make sure this is off.
If this was on, this was probably why your calls were being silenced.
How Do I Unsilence Calls Through Bedtime Status?
You can now enable the bedtime status and this will silence all calls during a set time period.
You need to disable this through the health app, find that on your phone and open it.
Head to the browse tab, choose sleep and scroll down to where it says ‘your schedule’. There, ensure the sleep schedule is turned off.
