How do I silence phone calls in do not disturb?

[ahostmadsen]

I would have thought that when I tell the phone that I do not want to be disturbed, that would obviously also means I don’t want to receive phone calls, but not to Apple it seems.

The settings in focus mode are confusing. I don’t see anything directly about phone calls. I tried to add the phone app to ‘silence notifications from,’ but is a phone call a ‘notification?’ I also set ‘allow phone calls from’ to ‘allowed people only’ (why is there no ‘allow phone calls from’ from ‘no one’ setting?). The confusing thing is that the list of people in ‘silence notifications from’ and ‘allow notifications from’ are the same. So, if add someone to the silence list, they are also automatically on the allowed list!?

With all this I’m still not sure I have silenced phone calls.

 

[ahostmadsen]

I posted the above question to chatGPT, and I think it explains it

3. Why the same people list appears under “Silence” and “Allow”​

This is the core source of confusion.

How it works:​

A Focus has one master list of people, and each person can be in one of two categories:

• Allowed → can notify you
• Silenced → cannot notify you

So when you tap “Add People” in one place, you’re editing the same underlying list.
This is why adding someone in “Silence Notifications From” also makes them appear in “Allowed Notifications From” (but marked as silenced).

In other words:

• The two lists are views of the same data, not separate independent lists.

This is unintuitive but intentional.

---

4. How to configure Do Not Disturb so NO ONE can make your phone ring​

Follow these exact steps:

1. Go to Settings → Focus → Do Not Disturb
2. Tap People
3. Under Allowed Notifications From, remove everyone → the list should be empty
4. Under Calls From, choose Allowed People Only
   (with an empty list, this means no one)
5. Turn Allow Repeated Calls off

Result:
No one can ring your phone while DND is active.

 

[Artemiz]

It’s not confusing at all.

All you need to do is have the option set to Always, which will silence the notifications even when your iPhone is unlocked while having the people list empty if you don’t want any exceptions.

I don’t believe anyone else is confused with how the DND focus works or there would’ve been many posts.

 

[wonderings]

I leave my phone constantly in silent mode. Had the sound of a phone ringing personally. When a call comes in it shows on my MacBook Pro, vibrates on my Apple Watch and vibrate on my iPhone. I don't need more ways to be notified I have a call coming in. So would the simplest be to simply put your phone in silent mode?