Unknown Caller filtering solutions

[treestar]

I have been receiving spam calls and text messages from unknown numbers. I would like notifications for calls and text messages from unknown numbers to be silent. I can't find a way to set up this type of filter.

From what I understand about Do Not Disturb mode, it will silence all notification sounds except calls from known contacts. I do not want to silence alerts for messages from known contacts, or my app notification sounds (such as Mail).

I noticed I can set custom ringtones and alert sounds for my contacts, but there is no option to set the default global ringtone to "None". Also, there is no mode to edit multiple contacts simultaneously, so the task is very time consuming. I use a contact list synced via Gmail.

One suggestion I've read about is creating a Spam contact, blocking it, and adding unwanted numbers to it, but this still allows first time calls through.

I do not care if I miss a sincere call from someone if they are not in my contacts. I have not jailbreaked.

 

[treestar]

I didn't get any suggestions. Here's what I did:

• I created an empty .m4r file named "Silence", added it to iTunes, then synced it to my phone (It can't be zero seconds long or it won't be recognized).
• I set the default ringtone to "Silence".
• I set the default text tone to None.
• I manually edited every contact's custom ringtone and text tone individually to what I wanted (There is no way to do this to a subset or group).

I like the classic ringtones, which are in a sub-listing of ringtones in iOS 8. Rather than navigating the sub-listing each time, I made copies of those ringtones and synced them via iTunes as new ringtones. Now they are easier to select. The ringtones are located in:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ToneLibrary.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Ringtones/

Additionally, the FaceTime ringtone can be found inside the FaceTime.app contents.

This method is not ideal as you cannot mass edit the custom ringtones for contacts, but I was able to use a placeholder ringtone for silence and had access to Apple's official ringtone files. Additionally, it's probably the most precise way to configure these settings, since Do Not Disturb makes exceptions only for calls.

 

[C DM]

I think the only other way to do something like this is perhaps to use a service like Google Voice and have that filter calls to some degree--but people would have to basically call that number instead of your number (or you could potentially port your number to the service and use it like that).

But would be nice if Apple added some more options in iOS.