Send Calls Straight to Voice Mail

[AppleFan22]

I have someone who calls me about every 10 minutes of the day, and I'm not able to block them (yet), so I'm looking for a way to send them straight to voicemail without me doing the "press the power button twice" thing, or pressing the decline call button. I want something that does it automatically for me. Is there anything I can do about that?

iPhone 6, on GiffGaff network

 

[maflynn]

I hate to state the obvious, but why not tell them not to call you so much?

 

[AppleFan22]

Aha, I wish I could. They're severely autistic, and would be upset by this, but voicemail is much nicer

 

[eyoungren]

I have someone who calls me about every 10 minutes of the day, and I'm not able to block them (yet), so I'm looking for a way to send them straight to voicemail without me doing the "press the power button twice" thing, or pressing the decline call button. I want something that does it automatically for me. Is there anything I can do about that?

iPhone 6, on GiffGaff network

iPhone 6. So that means you have at least iOS 8, if not iOS 9.

If this person is a contact, you can have the phone block the contact. Phone never rings, straight to voicemail.

I have a contact that I labeled BLOCKED CALLER. Any contact added to that list is blocked and goes straight to VM. Plus, as this was an existing contact before upgrading to iOS 7 it was long ago assigned a silent ringtone. So, either way, I never hear it.

Then when I want to block someone, I just add them to this contact. I can take it a step further since I'm jailbroken, but for stock this works pretty well.

 

[maflynn]

Aha, I wish I could. They're severely autistic, and would be upset by this, but voicemail is much nicer

Ah, I see, yes in that situation, discretion is the best option.

 

[AppleFan22]

iPhone 6. So that means you have at least iOS 8, if not iOS 9.

If this person is a contact, you can have the phone block the contact. Phone never rings, straight to voicemail.

I have a contact that I labeled BLOCKED CALLER. Any contact added to that list is blocked and goes straight to VM. Plus, as this was an existing contact before upgrading to iOS 7 it was long ago assigned a silent ringtone. So, either way, I never hear it.

Then when I want to block someone, I just add them to this contact. I can take it a step further since I'm jailbroken, but for stock this works pretty well.

So in short, if I rename the contact to simply "BLOCKED CALLER", they go straight to voicemail? I need to be able to receive their texts, so will I still get them?

 

[BrianBaughn]

If you don't use "Do Not Disturb" another solution would be to configure your contacts groups and DND in a way to allow calls from everyone but that particular contact.

 

[eyoungren]

So in short, if I rename the contact to simply "BLOCKED CALLER", they go straight to voicemail? I need to be able to receive their texts, so will I still get them?

No. I wish it were that simple. That just happens to be what I named the contact I drop people/entities I don't want to hear from into. I could have called it "People I accept calls from all the time". Doesn't matter what you title it if you create a contact. All that matters is whether the contact is blocked or not.

Here you see a number that called me (not my number). At the very bottom see where it says "Block this caller"? You can either do that with the number of the person who is calling you OR create a contact with their number and then in the Phone app, go to one of the times they called (press the "I" for info) and then press on the block.

Either way it will block them.

 

[AppleFan22]

If you don't use "Do Not Disturb" another solution would be to configure your contacts groups and DND in a way to allow calls from everyone but that particular contact.

This is possible, and I know how to do this, but it's too big of a sacrifice. It'd mean I'd not get any notifications from any other apps, as well as loosing the capability to only receive "Favourited" calls - everyone would have to be a favourite, so my current favourites would become "normals". Thanks anyway
[doublepost=1455919942][/doublepost]

No. I wish it were that simple. That just happens to be what I named the contact I drop people/entities I don't want to hear from into. I could have called it "People I accept calls from all the time". Doesn't matter what you title it if you create a contact. All that matters is whether the contact is blocked or not.

Here you see a number that called me (not my number). At the very bottom see where it says "Block this caller"? You can either do that with the number of the person who is calling you OR create a contact with their number and then in the Phone app, go to one of the times they called (press the "I" for info) and then press on the block.

Either way it will block them.

I only want to block phone calls, not texts. Won't this block incoming texts too?

(I did know about doing this, but thought it'd block incoming calls AND texts)

 

[C DM]

This is possible, and I know how to do this, but it's too big of a sacrifice. It'd mean I'd not get any notifications from any other apps, as well as loosing the capability to only receive "Favourited" calls - everyone would have to be a favourite, so my current favourites would become "normals". Thanks anyway
[doublepost=1455919942][/doublepost]

I only want to block phone calls, not texts. Won't this block incoming texts too?

(I did know about doing this, but thought it'd block incoming calls AND texts)

You can set up DND to allow calls from all contacts (not just favorites) if you want.

As for blocking, it does seem like blocking a number/contact in iOS will block calls, messages, and FaceTime from that contact.

Perhaps another thing you can consider is assigning a silent ringtone to the contact so that at least the calls don't alert you when they come in form that contact--although they would still appear on the phone.

Aside from that there might be some call blocking options offered by the carrier you are using where you can perhaps block calls through them, which perhaps might only extend to calls and not messages, or SMS/MMS to be more specific (as it wouldn't extend to iMessages as that's on Apple's side of things).

 

[cfclay]

iPhone 6. So that means you have at least iOS 8, if not iOS 9.

If this person is a contact, you can have the phone block the contact. Phone never rings, straight to voicemail.

I have a contact that I labeled BLOCKED CALLER. Any contact added to that list is blocked and goes straight to VM. Plus, as this was an existing contact before upgrading to iOS 7 it was long ago assigned a silent ringtone. So, either way, I never hear it.

Then when I want to block someone, I just add them to this contact. I can take it a step further since I'm jailbroken, but for stock this works pretty well.

Even if they weren't a contact, you can block that number .

 

[eyoungren]

Even if they weren't a contact, you can block that number .

Right. I mentioned that in a rather convoluted way.

 

[timeconsumer]

Based on the replies it doesn't seem like there's a best way to handle this through the default OS. From what I'm reading it seems the best option is to set this contact to have a silent ringtone. The only other option I can think of is to use a third party app but I'm not sure how feasible this would be.

Edit: It's too bad Apple doesn't allow for a separate block list on messages/calls but instead groups them together.

 

[lordofthereef]

Are you able/willing to jailbreak? I know there are call blocker options there that completely leave texts alone.

 

[Umbrarian]

just block the number

 

[timeconsumer]

just block the number

That wouldn't work in this scenario as the OP would like to still receive text messages from this number. By blocking the number for calls it also adds it to the blocked messages list.

 

[eyoungren]

just block the number

Which also blocks text messages - which is not what OP wants to do. OP wants the caller to go to VM, but he wants to receive the text messages.

 

[Tinmania]

That wouldn't work in this scenario as the OP would like to still receive text messages from this number. By blocking the number for calls it also adds it to the blocked messages list.

I believe it only blocks text notifications, not the texts themselves nor the badge for the Messages app. So the OP would still get the texts but would have to glance at the phone to see if there was a new badge for the messages app (for that person only).



Mike

 

[C DM]

just block the number

Seems like reading through the preceding posts in the thread would have addressed that type of resolution.
[doublepost=1455933725][/doublepost]

I believe it only blocks text notifications, not the texts themselves nor the badge for the Messages app. So the OP would still get the texts but would have to glance at the phone to see if there was a new badge for the messages app (for that person only).



Mike

It actually simply doesn't delver the texts when blocking is involved. What you are thinking is likely DND that was added for conversations, where you can put different conversations into DND mode, which will work the way you are describing.

 

[AppleFan22]

I've tested these theories about texts still coming in, and it's not true. Texts sent to me from a blocked number don't come in at all, even after being unblocked.

I'm on iOS 9.3 public beta, so I don't want to jailbreak, just in case it causes a problem that I might otherwise report as a bug. I also have tried numerous times before to jailbreak this phone and an iPhone 4, but it's always failed, despite me following every single instruction perfectly.

It also seems I wouldn't be able to chance a jailbreak in case I have to erase the phone, as the SIM I'm using is on a different network to the one used to originally activate the phone. (On the aforementioned iPhone 4 I tried activating on a different SIM to the original activation and it got blocked).

I might just have to resort to totally blocking said contact...

 

[C DM]

I've tested these theories about texts still coming in, and it's not true. Texts sent to me from a blocked number don't come in at all, even after being unblocked.

I'm on iOS 9.3 public beta, so I don't want to jailbreak, just in case it causes a problem that I might otherwise report as a bug. I also have tried numerous times before to jailbreak this phone and an iPhone 4, but it's always failed, despite me following every single instruction perfectly.

It also seems I wouldn't be able to chance a jailbreak in case I have to erase the phone, as the SIM I'm using is on a different network to the one used to originally activate the phone. (On the aforementioned iPhone 4 I tried activating on a different SIM to the original activation and it got blocked).

I might just have to resort to totally blocking said contact...

Have you looked into any carrier/provider blocking options (in case they might have an option to block calls separately from messages, or even if they block messages it wouldn't apply to iMessage and if that's what the other party is using then you'd still get their messages that way)?

 

[AppleFan22]

Have you looked into any carrier/provider blocking options (in case they might have an option to block calls separately from messages, or even if they block messages it wouldn't apply to iMessage and if that's what the other party is using then you'd still get their messages that way)?

Other party hasn't got an iPhone, so can't send iMessages. I'll have a look at carrier blocking now.

UPDATE: Nope, my carrier doesn't provide any of their own blocking services...

 

[Tinmania]

I've tested these theories about texts still coming in, and it's not true. Texts sent to me from a blocked number don't come in at all, even after being unblocked.

I find that hard to believe.


Mike

 

[bpeeps]

I believe it only blocks text notifications, not the texts themselves nor the badge for the Messages app. So the OP would still get the texts but would have to glance at the phone to see if there was a new badge for the messages app (for that person only).



Mike

This is false information.