How to Block and Unblock Contacts in iPhone?

Though smartphones have lot of technologies, there are no real ways to escape from the spam marketing calls from unknown callers. Sometimes, you also want to temporarily block annoying contacts who disturb you during important meeting or off-time while sleeping. Although you have an option of using a third-party apps, most iPhone users prefer the default iOS feature to block contacts. Apple rolled out a contact blocking feature in iOS 7. With a couple of taps, you will not only block unwanted phone calls but text messages as well. Here is how to do it.

Related: How to delete single and multiple contacts in iPhone?

Blocking Contacts in iPhone

Though iPhone offers Contacts app for managing your address book, you can block contacts from different apps. You should also know that when you block a contact you would be blocking the phone calls, messages, emails and FaceTime. In other words, you cannot block a contact from only calling or messaging separately in iPhone. It’s a packaged deal.

Block Callers in iPhone

Follow the steps outlined below to block unwanted calls from contacts on your iPhone.

• Tap the “Phone” app on your home screen.
• Select “Contacts” from the bottom navigation to access your contact list.
• Select the contact person you intend to block from the list. If you want to block a recent caller then tap on “Recents” tab and choose the information icon button on the caller number.
• Scroll down on the contact’s page and tap “Block this Caller” option.
• Confirm again by pressing “Block Contact” to block the person.

Using Caller ID and Blocking App

Most of the time the spammer will call from an unknown number. There are apps like Hiya allows you to view the real caller id and block spam calls. The app also allows you to do reverse lookup and find the details of an incoming call.

Block Contact from Messages app

Apple introduced a new spam filtering feature in iOS 12. This will help to automatically filter and group the spam messages separately as “Unknown Senders”. Also you can report a spam message to Apple as a junk to help in identifying spams. In addition, you can also block unwanted messages from a contact. Here is how to do it.

• Tap the “Settings” icon on your home screen.
• Scroll down and select “Messages”.

• Tap “Blocked Contacts” to Add a new contact to your blocked list.

Alternatively, you can open Messages app and open the message from the sender. Tap on the sender name showing on top and choose info icon. Here you can select “Block this Caller” option to stop receiving messages and calls from the contact.

Block Contacts from FaceTime

Similar to Phone and Messages, you can block contacts from FaceTime app.

• Go to “Settings > FaceTime” and scroll down to the bottom of settings page.
• Tap on “Blocked Contacts” option and then tap “Add New”.
• Choose a contact from the list to block from FaceTime calls.

Related: How to block websites in iPhone?

Blocking Email Senders in iPhone

You maybe syncing email contacts with your Contacts app for easy management. In this case, receiving emails from spam contacts will create lot of junk contacts in your Contacts app. Since blocking works in iPhone across the app, once you block a caller or message sender, the person will be blocked in emails also. However, you can also block a sender in emails to block in other apps.

• Open Mail app and then view the email from the sender whom you want to block.
• Tap on the email sender to expand the details.
• Again tap on the sender name link showing in “From” field.
• This will open the contact page for that email sender and select “Block this Contact” option.

• Henceforth, any email received from that sender will be automatically sent to junk folder.
• You can go to junk folder and mark the email as not junk to whitelist the sender again.

For bulk blocking, go to “Settings > Mail” section and tap on “Blocked” option. From here, you can block multiple people from your contacts list.

View All Blocked Contacts List in iPhone

When you start blocking many people on your contact list, you will end up forgetting the numbers you have blocked. It may not be possible after some time to remember the callers you have blocked. iPhone offers a handy feature to get the list of all blocked numbers.

• Tap on “Settings” icon.
• Scroll down and tap on the “Phone” option.
• Select “Blocked Contacts”.
• Here you can view the list of all blocked caller names.

Note that from this settings page also you can block specific caller. You can also view all blocked contacts from the settings page of Messages and FaceTime app.

Unblocking Contacts

Sometimes you might have temporarily blocked your known friend’s number to avoid disturbance. Though you can enable do not disturb mode, it is handy to block caller from Phone app. You can open Phone app and tap on the contact. At the down, select “Unblock this caller” to allow calls from the contact.

If you want unblock multiple contacts that you have blocked through phone, email or messages, you can do that while viewing blocked contacts from Phone settings page.

• Go to “Settings > Phone > Blocked Contacts” section.
• Tap on “Edit” link showing on top right corner.
• Tap the minus icon showing in front of the contacts you want to unblock.
• Now tap on “Unblock” option.

What Happens When You Block Number?

When you block the contact, the person will not know that you have blocked him or her. When they try to call you, mostly they will hear a busy message like “the number you have dialed is busy”. They can send a voicemail, however you will never receive it. Similarly the blocked contact can still send a message to you, but you will never receive that message.

However, blocking contacts work differently for emails. You have an option to choose what to do with the emails from blocked senders. Go to “Settings > Mail > Blocked Sender” section and enable “Mark Blocked Sender” option. This will show you actions for leaving the mails in the inbox and move them to trash. At any case, the emails will be marked with a red circle mark for you to easily identify they are from blocked senders. Learn more tips on using Mail app in iPhone.

To Wrap Up

As you can see, blocking contact’s call or messages in iPhone is not as complicated as you imagined. You can block from Phone, Mail, Messages or FaceTime app and the contact will be blocked in all the apps throughout your phone. You can go to settings page for blocking and unblocking contacts in bulk.