How to Enable Do Not Disturb For Individual Contact Calls on iPhone
With the Do Not Disturb mode on iPhone, you can stop annoying repeated calls or Messages notifications from people who just don’t know when to stop.
Such endless messages or phone calls can increase your notifications count, drain your iPhone battery, interrupt meetings or important conversations, and drive your co-workers nuts.
Don’t even get me started about how odd calls or messages at odd hours can interrupt your sleep or mess up your morning meditation.
Unfortunately, if you put your iPhone on silence, you risk missing other important calls or text messages, including emergencies, which brings us to the question:
Can You Put One Person or Specific Contacts on Do Not Disturb on iPhone?
If you’ve asked this same question recently, it simply means that you also have a specific contact on iPhone that you don’t want to contact you every so often.
Thankfully, the answer is yes. Your iPhone has a handy feature that allows you to put a particular contact or specific contacts on Do Not Disturb mode, and no; it will not prevent Emergency Bypass.
This way, when the person calls or messages you as a contact on iPhone, your iPhone will mute notifications and hide alerts for them, except in the event of an emergency.
In the next section, you’ll learn how to silence calls, messages, and their respective app notifications for specific contacts that you don’t want to block outright.
How to Put One Person on Do Not Disturb on iPhone
Previous iOS versions allowed you to silence calls or text tone directly via the iPhone Contacts phone app, but not anymore. So, ensure to update your iOS.
The following are the different ways to put one specific contact or person on Do Not Disturb mode (silence calls and text messages) on iPhone.
Enable Do Not Disturb Mode for a Specific Contact Using the iPhone Messages App
You can use this method if you’ve either sent or received messages from this specific person previously.
Go to the Messages app, press and hold the message (without opening it), and tap on Hide Alerts.
Alternatively, open the message, tap on the contact’s name or phone number, toggle on Hide Alerts, and tap Done.
Whichever method you use, a silence icon (bell with a slash) will display over your chats with that particular contact.
Note that when using Do Not Disturb or another Focus on iPhone, Messages will let your contacts know that you have notifications silenced on your phone.
Also, when Notify Me (Settings > Messages > Notify Me) is on, you will be notified when your name is mentioned even if conversations are muted.
How to Remove One Person From Do Not Disturb Mode on iPhone
If you decide to restore message notifications or alerts for calls for one specific contact, iPhone also allows you to do that.
To remove Do Not Disturb for an individual contact using the iPhone Messages app, simply undo it by pressing and holding a message (without opening it), and tapping on Show Alerts.
You can also do this by opening a previous chat or conversation, tapping on the contact’s name or phone number, toggling off Hide Alerts, and tapping Done.
This removes the silence icon and allows calls and message alerts on iPhone.
Enable Do Not Disturb Mode for a Specific Contact Using Focus Mode
This method works whether or not you’ve had a previous conversation with the specific contact for whom you want to enable Do Not Disturb mode.
You can choose from four different Focus modes or Do Not Disturb settings in your iPhone, viz:
- Do Not Disturb (For when you generally don’t want anyone to disturb you).
- Personal (For when you have personal things to do and want some quiet).
- Sleep (For when you want to sleep or enter a restful state without being interrupted).
- Work (For when you’re working on a project and don’t want distractions).
To use the Do Not Disturb option, open the Settings app, tap on Focus, and select Do Not Disturb. Under Notifications, tap People, select Silence Notification From, tap Add, select the contact, and tap Done.
To use the Personal Focus option, go to Settings > Focus > Personal > Customize Focus (if reaching here for the first time) > People (under Silence Notifications) > Silence Notifications From > Add > select contact > Done.
For Sleep Focus, use Settings > Focus > Sleep > Customize Focus > People (under Allow Notifications) > Silence Notifications From > Add > select the particular contact > Done.
If you prefer to go the Work Focus route, tap Settings > Focus > Work > Customize Focus > People (under Silence Notifications) > Silence Notifications From > Add > select the individual contact > Done.
Whichever option you pick, the silenced contact will be added to the People category of your preferred Focus with the silence icon to boot.
How to Remove One Person From Do Not Disturb on iPhone via Focus
To undo any of these, simply go to Settings > Focus > select the specific Focus (Do Not Disturb/Personal/Sleep/Work) > People > and tap on the contact’s name. This will remove them from the Do Not Disturb list on your device.
How to Enable Do Not Disturb for Specific Individual Contacts
If more than one person is constantly bombarding you with calls and messages, you can easily lose focus and lose it at any moment.
Thankfully, your iPhone also allows you to silence messages and calls for multiple contacts at once. However, you can’t do this using either Messages or the Contacts app.
Again, you’ll have to use any of the four Focus modes on iPhone, that is, Do Not Disturb, Personal, Sleep, or Work.
For Do Not Disturb Focus, tap on Settings, select Focus, then Do Not Disturb. Under Notifications, tap People and select Silence Notifications From. Now, tap Add and select all the individual contacts you want to silence and tap Done.
For Personal Focus, go to Settings > Focus > Personal > People > Silence Notifications From > Add > select the specific individual contacts > Done.
To enable Do Not Disturb in Sleep Focus mode, also tap Settings > Focus > Sleep > People > Silence Notifications From > Add > select the specific individual contacts > Done.
If you’d rather use DND in Work mode to silence certain people, open Settings > Focus > Work > People > Silence Notifications From > Add > select all of them > Done, and you’re all set to enjoy some peace and quiet.
You can always add any number of specific people to this list by repeating the same steps for your preferred Focus mode and you won’t hear a thing when next they message or call even from a land line.
There’ll be no silence icon in the Contacts app or contact card to indicate that a contact or contacts are being silenced.
How to Remove Do Not Disturb for Specific Contacts on iPhone
To remove DND restrictions or silent mode for specific iPhone contacts and receive notifications for calls and messages, you’ll have to do so individually.
Open Settings > Focus > select the specific Focus (Do Not Disturb/Personal/Sleep/Work) > People > and tap on the name of the contacts. This automatically removes them from the DND list.
Alternatively, you can simply swipe down on your iPhone screen, tap Focus, and tap on the particular focus you want to disable. From here you can also set a duration or access Focus settings by tapping on the three dots.
