How to stop your iPhone or iPad from bothering you.
While Notification Center is a great way to make sure you never miss an alert, there are some times when you might not want to hear the beeping and the buzzing that typically comes with them. With Do Not Disturb, your iPhone or iPad will keep collecting all your alerts but will do so quietly. Whether you're in a meeting, at a romantic dinner, or simply trying to get a good night's sleep, Do Not Disturb will make sure you can talk, eat, or sleep in peace and quiet, and still find all your alerts waiting for you when you're ready.
- How to enable Do Not Disturb on iPhone or iPad
- How to schedule Do Not Disturb for specific times on iPhone or iPad
- How to customize Do Not Disturb settings on iPhone or iPad
How to enable Do Not Disturb on iPhone and iPad
When you don't want to hear a sound from your iPhone or iPad—for example, while you're in a movie theater, out for dinner, or in an important meeting—you can turn Do Not Disturb on and enjoy some peace and quiet. Here's how you do it.
- Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to launch Control Center.
Tap the Do Not Disturb button. It looks like a crescent moon and is in the top row.
To turn Do Not Disturb off again, just follow the same steps.
How to schedule Do Not Disturb for specific times on iPhone or iPad
If you want your iPhone or iPad to go dark when you do—so you can sleep or attend class or workout without beeps or buzzes—you can schedule Do Not Disturb to turn itself on automatically.
- Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
Tap on Do Not Disturb.
- Tap the Scheduled switch to On in order to activate the scheduling feature.
- Tap the blue times directly underneath Scheduled.
Swipe up or down to select the From and To times that you'd like Do Not Disturb to be active.
Unfortunately Do Not Disturb only lets you schedule one block of time a day, and the same block of time everyday. Hopefully a future version of iOS will let you schedule multiple Do Not Disturb times.
How to customize Do Not Disturb settings on iPhone or iPad
If you're worried that Do Not Disturb will make you miss something really important—a call from your significant other or babysitter, or a business contact you're anxious to hear from—you can customize some exceptions.
- Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
- Tap on Do Not Disturb.
Tap on Allow Calls From.
- From here, you can select from the following options:
- Everyone: Allows calls from everyone on your contacts list.
- No One: Allows calls from no one.
- Favorites: Allows calls from contacts in your Favorites list.
- Specific group: A specific group of contacts.
- Tap the Repeated Calls switch to on to allow a call from the same number through if received within three minutes of the first.
Tap on either of the Silence options to select your choice:
- Always: Calls and notifications are always silent.
Only while iPhone is locked: Calls and notifications are silent only when the iPhone is locked.
The customization isn't exactly robust, but it does work and hopefully Apple will expand on it as well.
Allyson Kazmucha and Katy McGraw contributed to an earlier version of this guide.
Reader comments
How to set up and use Do Not Disturb mode on iPhone and iPad
this some how don't work for everything because I still get notifications for certain apps like BBM when its on.
You seriously have 20,000+ emails? WOW!
It would be great if there was a way to disable just messages (more specifically a way customize exceptions on do not disturb so that certain ones can get through).
If there's a way to do this already, I haven't found it.
I wish I could do multiple scheduled times for DND. I have it set for weekdays to be on when I am at work, but I wish I could set another one for weekends. I really think they should add that!
I see mention that the DND does not work with an alarm clock...Can someone explain a little more how that works? Say for instance I set an alarm for 8 am and DND is on - does the alarm still sound or no?
After i wake up, and turn dont disturb off, cant see the incoming calls... Why, or what should i do? And friends are telling, i was busy :(
Multiple sets of DND during the day would be great and a separate set for the weekend.
I too, would love to have this setting apply to text messages as well, or at least have the same functionality for text notifications separately.
Why would you want to prohibit texts? Just set it in the Settings to not give you a notification of any kind for text messages. Then you can still go and see if you got any texts when convenient.
It's nice to see how many different features regarding DND, that we'd like add to the standard software. I've been a die-hard for Android since the beginning and have recently switched to iP6+ where I miss apps like Tasker and Silence to schedule when to turn volume on/off/vibrate at different hours and during appointments/calendarentries.
It looks like the off-the-shelf apps and settings in iPhone quite seldom satisfy those users having just a few extra needs.
I would like to use do not disturb but allow calls & text from my contacts. It's just the sales calls & such I don't want. Is this possible?
Absolutely! Just set it to allow calls only from your contacts.
DND is great and I use it all the time but I wish there was away to setup VIP / Favorite SMS messages and email addresses.
I agree... I have a vip email account that I need to get emails any hours of the day but I don't want other people to wake me up. I need the DND to allow VIP
It would be nice if Apple added a feature to the Do Not Disturb that allowed the user to customize the text messages they'd like to come through. I live in Kansas & we get some interesting weather. I receive alerts via text but in the Do Not Disturb function, I don't know when watches/warnings have been issued for my area & it would be nice to receive those during the night. I suffer from insomnia so I don't want my phone sounding off all night long with all of the texts that I get, but the weather alerts would be nice to have. Just a thought...
I wish you could block everything but favorites and non-calls. I just want to use it to block calls not on my favorites.
I love learning new things.
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I wish that you could more easily change the: 'Always' and 'When phone is locked'. There are times when I would need to change this option. Even if I had to go into Control Centre and turned it off and then on again and it was an option.
I just hit airplane mode when I do not want to be disturbed
I dont use DND very often, but when I do I always forget to turn it back off! That little moon icon is so easy to miss.
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I would love to see an option to not only let through calls from your favourites while in Do Not a Disturb mode, but also text messages as well. This would be useful if you were waiting for a text from a specific person, but didn't want any other texts to disturb you.
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Do people really need this info?, I figured out the Do Not Disturb in about one minute, well I guess not everybody is tech savvy?
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You just answered your own question
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And I apologize for my old avatar. Forgot to change it.
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Like my old Blackberry, I'd like I have an option to enter DND mode when I charge it.
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I would like to have do not disturb enabled by location. Reminders by location work perfectly and for example every time I enter our church building I would like do not disturb enabled and then disabled when I leave.
How about being able to set DND so that i get none of those Notifications when i am Playing Games like Real Racing 3. or is there a way ?
Yes. Just make sure always is selected instead of only when iPhone is locked.
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I will try it this way.
Hate Lapping Laguna Seca @ 197 MPH and having Notification Distractions.
Lol !!!!
Thanks.
I love this feature..but it would also be nice if you could customize it to allow your VIP contact texts to come through when you want them. :)
Thank you for all the how too's
How do you create groups?
how do you get to settings?
This feature would have actually been useful if the option to allow MESSAGES from favorites, as well as calls, had been included. Seriously, who calls anymore?
If DND is enabled, NO SMS/iMessage's will alert, no matter how favorite someone is, or how many times they send them in a panic. Not acceptable.
I know this was 1 year ago, so is there a solution to this issue now? I use my iphone as my work cell and turn DND on when i get off work so that i'm not getting calls from anyone besides my favorites after work, but how do i ensure i get texts? is there an app for that?
^This!
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thank u
I have to remember to turn it back off afterwards.
This is a great feature, I agree with jasondeno adding the do not disturb feature to appointments in the calendar would be amazing!! I can technically use the do not disturb to block any telemarketers and only allow calls from my contacts maybe adding a two tier do not disturb feature and now no unwanted calls. My only complaint or it may be my own ignorance how do I stop my iphone from alerting me in an audible way that i have a txt message or an email while on a phone call this is very irritating and somewhat embarrassing while on a conference call. Couldn't it just vibrate while i'm on a call?
I think your best option is to turn your phone on silent so the sounds do not ring. but your phone will vibrate with notifications. i wish there was an option to disable notifications while on a call.
Notification going off in my ear while on a call has to be the most annoying thing about my phone. Long over due needed feature.
This is a great feature indeed, but what is the benefit to use it instead of just turning the ringer-switch to mute, except for some calls will get through?
switching the silent switch on will still allow vibrations for notifications, and the screen will still turn on when it is locked (if you have that lock option set for notifcations). so if you are sleeping or in a meeting, you will still get distracted by notifications. the purpose of silent vs DND are quite different.
Ahh okay, good points there :)
I really wish we were able to set the specific days that we wanted this feature to be used - Monday- Friday. (like we do for the alarm clock settings).
This times 100! I don't work 7 days per week, yet. I would like to sleep late on Saturdays or Sundays. I was really hoping this would have been added in iOS 7.
Really glad to have this feature! For those of us who have gone landline-less, it's a little peace of mind at night due to fact we can program family and friends to be able to ring our phones in emergencies while anyone else is blocked. ZZZZZzzzzzzzzz.......
If you use your phone on the nightstand with an app that functions as an alarm clock, Do Not Disturb does not function. It only works when the phone is locked and the screen is dark. That's not a bug, it's a feature. :)
they should make it where it works with an alarm clock app though.. it's a feature that should be able to be switched on and off as well.
Totally agree
All the way at the bottom of the Do Not Disturb settings page is the option I think you are looking for ... Silence ... Always. It defaults to Only while iPhone is locked (which obviously doesn't work when using an always on alarm clock app).
It'd be great if Do Not Disturb could integrate more tightly with the Calendar. I'd like to be able to have Do Not Disturb turn itself on automatically for appointments in my calendar where my availability was set to Busy.
Good point and feature request. I would like that as well.
^this
Very surprised this was not thought of by apple, its a no brainer
The app AutoSilent will do this. I find it a lot more useful that Do Not Disturb.
Precisely! I have a rotating work schedule, i have it in my calendar via synced thru Google Calendar, so this feature would be great!
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+1
Yes! This! Windows Phone has this, for crying out loud. Why can't Apple implement this - or, at minimum, allow you to set different 'do not disturbs' for different days. (Windows Phone has that as well.) I kind of miss my old Windows Phone...
This was the one feature I missed when I left blackberry's and moved to the iPhone.
Now in iOS 6 I have it back! The office is closed and I am going to bed. :-)
This is ludicrous. It is now 2016 and I need to silence my phone for an hour. I can't?
I left Apple and went to Samsung when Apple decided that big phones were a fad for stupid people and finally came back now with the iPhone 6s+ thinking that Apple had learned a little.
On my Samsung Note 4 I could tap do not disturb and tell it how long. An hour, an hour and fifteen minutes. Eight hours. You know, intuitive, useful, basic common sense stuff.
And I come here to find that Apple won't even allow me to schedule a recurring event? Staff meeting every Monday? Nope.
Once again I am reminded that Apple is in charge of my phone and my needs, no matter how basic, are stupid and not available because the folks in Cupertino don't do that and thus I cannot.