There are certain situations whereby you don’t neccesarily fancy answering calls for all contacts on your phone or probably for a particular contact and which you wouldn’t want to block the person.
Now the question is;
How to send someone to voicemail without blocking them on iPhone?
The answer is by enabling do not disturb mode on your iPhone and it will send calls to your voicemail without blocking them.
This is simply the answer you are looking for.
When you don’t fancy answering calls on your iPhone for all contacts or for a particular contact on your iPhone, you simply have to turn on do not disturb and it will automatically block calls and in turn send your calls straight to voicemail.
Now the the question is how do you enable this on your iPhone?
Let’s get started with sending your calls straight to voicemail on your iPhone.
1.1. How to send calls to voicemail on iPhone using airplane mode
To send calls to voicemail on your iPhone, open the settings app and you will see focus or do not disturb depending on the ios version your iPhone is running on.
Another method to locate focus mode or do not disturb mode is by pulling down the control panel and right there you will see focus or do not disturb.
On the focus mode page, tap on Do Not Disturb to open it. The very option you will see is the button to turn on do not disturb on your iPhone, please go ahead and turn on the button like shown on the picture below.
Once you do not disturb is enabled on your iPhone you will see a moon like icon shown at the top left corner of your screen as shown on the above picture.
Once do not disturb is enabled on your iPhone, it will automatically send calls to voicemail if you have an active voicemail on your iPhone.
If you don’t have an active voicemail on your iPhone then it will end the call immediately showing user busy.
You can customize do not disturb by setting the number of hours you want the feature to be active on your iPhone.
Look towards the bottom where it states TURN ON AUTOMATICALLY and tap on the time box where it states Every day.
Next is to slide the button that says Schedule, set the time based on the starting time and the ending time.
Select the number of days you want do not disturb to go off on your iPhone and you’re good to go.
Below is how I set up my do not disturb mode on my iPhone.
Once you have everything in order you’re good to go blocking calls on your iPhone as all the calls will be redirected straight to voicemail.
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Setting do not disturb for a particular contact
If the question of how to send someone to voicemail without blocking them iPhone is based on a single contact or for a particular contact on your iPhone, you can easily set that as well on your iPhone.
To do so;
Open do not disturb by going opening the settings app, scroll down to focus or do not disturb and open it.
Right there you will see ALLOWED Notifications which has two two presented to you;
- People
- Apps
Tap on the option that says People and you will see the add button. Go ahead and add all the contact on your iPhone except for that very contact you want to send to voicemail and tap Done.
Make sure to set all calls to favorites if you have favorites calls that you wouldn’t want to send to voicemail.
Once you have set everything on your do not do not disturb allow notifications, calls from all the contacts you exempted on your do not disturb will go through except for that very contact which will be sent straight to voicemail.
This is what it entails when it comes to sending someone to voicemail without blocking them on iPhone. Simply enable do not disturb on your iPhone and it will automatically block calls and send the caller straight to voicemail on your iPhone.
And that’s it on how to send a contact to voicemail or how to make certain numbers go straight to voicemail.
When someone calls you on do not disturb mode
If someone calls you on do not disturb mode on iPhone, the call will automatically sent straight to voicemail off applicable or end immediately if there’s no active voicemail.
Now if the caller happens to call back within a space of three minutes of the first initial call, the call won’t be redirected to voicemail as it will go through.
You should know this because on iPhone do not disturb mode doesn’t neccesarily send all calls to voicemail and I’m quite disappointed about it because if a call is sent to voicemail, subsequent calls from the same caller within three minutes will go through and ring aloud.
However, only if you didn’t turn on Allow Repeated Calls as shown below.
Nevertheless, do not disturb do block calls on iPhone and the best option on how to send someone to voicemail without blocking them on iPhone.
1.2. How to send calls to voicemail using airplane mode
Airplane mode is another way to send calls to voicemail if you don’t fancy switching off your iPhone entirely.
Once airplane mode is enabled on your iPhone, you won’t be able to receive cellular calls as they will be redirected straight to voicemail.
On the contrary, when your phone is on airplane mode, it will look as if you switched off your phone because cellular network service won’t be available on your iPhone.
So if you want to send someone to voicemail without blocking them on iPhone kindly enable airplane mode on your iPhone.
To do so;
Pull down the control panel on your iPhone and right there you will see an airplane or flight icon.
Immediately you tap on the airplane mode icon, your cellular network service, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
In some rare cases which I have seen on my iPhone 12 Pro Max, Wi-Fi doesn’t turn off when airplane mode is activated. In this case, all you have to do is to manually turn off airplane mode.
I don’t see the reason why Wi-Fi should be on when your phone is on airplane mode as you may tend to receive facetime calls and iMessages.
The airplane mode and do not disturb mode are the best methods to send someone to voicemail without blocking them on iPhone. We have other options like to silence unknown callers which send callers to voicemail but it is only applicable to unknown numbers.
If the number is known, then thir very option won’t work.
Sending unknown callers to voicemail
To send unknown caller to voicemail on iPhone;
- Open the settings app, scroll down to Phone and open it.
- Towards the bottom you will see Silence Unknown Callers.
- Tap to open Silence Unknown Callers and slide to turn on the button and the feature on your iPhone.
- Once you have done that, unknown callers will be redirected straight to voicemail if applicable or their calls will end abruptly.
Sending calls to voicemail without turning off phone?
To send calls to voicemail without turning off phone, simply activate do not disturb mode or airplane mode on the phone and it will redirect calls straight to voicemail.
Mind you, this is both applicable to android phone and the iPhone as long as you have an active voicemail on your phone. Even when you don’t have an active it will make the call look as if you’re busy with other call.
When someone calls you, it will show user busy whereas in the real sense you’re not on another call.
Thanks to airplane mode you can redirect callers straight to voicemail as do not disturb mode will allow subsequent calls from the callers within a space of three minutes of making the first call.
How do I put my Iphone on busy mode? To put busy mode on your iPhone, simply remove voicemail from your iPhone and enable do not disturb and silence unknown callers on your iPhone.
Now listen, if you have a voicemail number on your iPhone, it won’t show busy on the callers side but rather the caller will be redirected to voicemail.
But if you don’t have a voicemail on your iPhone, then it will show busy on the callers phone thereby making it look as if you’re busy or on another call.
