How to turn off Continuity's call relay and stop your iPad and Mac from ringing

By Rene Ritchie
last updated

Continuity's call relay lets you answer a phone call from your iPhone on your iPad, iPod touch, or Mac. It's great for when an important call comes in and your iPhone is out of reach. It's not so great when you have 3 or 4 iPads, iPods, and Macs around you when a call comes in and they all start to ring — and ring, and ring — all at once. Luckily, if you don't want an iPad or Mac to ring, you can easily turn call relay off. You just need to know where to look...

How to turn off Continuity call relay on your iPad or iPod touch

  1. Launch the Settings app.
  2. Tap on FaceTime.
  3. Turn Off the option for iPhone Cellular Calls.

How to turn off Continuity call relay on your Mac

  1. Double-click on the FaceTime icon in your Mac's dock. (If you don't see it there, just hit CMD-Space and use Spotlight Search to find it instead.)
  2. Click on FaceTime in the menu bar.
  3. Click on Preferences...
  4. Uncheck the box labeled iPhone Cellular Calls.

More help with Continuity

Continuity, built into iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite can also relay SMS/MMS to your iPad or Mac, let you connect via Instant Hotspot, AirDrop between all your Apple devices, and handoff activities as you move from one to the other. Here's how it all works:

Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.

4 Comments
  • Thanks Rene, I was trying to do this on my iPad testerday. I didn't think to look in FaceTime.
  • I hadn't even thought about turning it off. It's quite annoying to be honest. I tried (randomly) to answer a call on my Mac and when I answered it was still ringing on my phone. I'm as well turning it off! Less noise when they all go crazy!
  • The only thing that bothers me is how FaceTime indicates a missed call on the devices I don't answer it on. If I take or decline the call, I don't want the notification badge.
  • For about 100 years the thing about Macs was that they were intuitive. And maybe I'm just getting old, but I never would've looked in face time to turn off a cell phone call. Makes sense from a development standpoint, I guess.