How to Fix iPhone Going Straight to Voicemail without Ringing

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Why does a call go straight to voicemail without ringing? The culprit may be a setting like Do Not Disturb, Focus modes, or Silence Unknown Callers. There are several more things to check if those settings aren't to blame. Here's how to stop calls from going straight to voicemail on your iPhone.

How to Fix It When Phone Goes Straight to Voicemail without Ringing

"Why does my phone go straight to voicemail?" Calls going straight to voicemail on your iPhone can have many different causes. Make sure your iPhone ringer is on and that the volume is turned up high enough to hear, and check to see if your iPhone is connected to headphones or another Bluetooth device. Do an iOS update, if needed, and reboot your iPhone. If your iPhone is still sending calls straight to voicemail, read on.

Jump To:

• Make Sure Airplane Mode Is Off
• Turn Off Do Not Disturb & Check Focus Modes
• Turn Off the Block Unknown Calls Feature
• Check Announce Call Settings
• Check Your Blocked Numbers
• Reset Network Settings
• Test Your SIM Card
• FAQ

Make Sure Airplane Mode Is Off

This is an easy fix! If Airplane Mode is turned on, you won't hear calls ring. The person calling you will hear your phone ring, and they'll be able to leave a voicemail. To see if Airplane mode is off:

1. Open the Control Center by swiping down from the upper-right corner of your screen for an iPhone X or later, or by swiping up from the bottom if your iPhone is older. 
2. If the Airplane Mode icon is orange, it means Airplane mode is turned on. Tap the icon to change it back to gray and turn Airplane mode off. Even if Airplane mode isn't on, it's worth your time to turn it on, wait a minute, then turn it off again to reset your wireless features.
   
   

Phone calls going straight to voicemail still? Read on for more ways to fix the problem.

Turn Off Do Not Disturb & Check Focus Modes

While you have the Control Center open, you can check to see if Do Not Disturb or Focus Modes are turned on. It's easy to forget that Do Not Disturb directs all your calls to voicemail, and Focus Modes can stop calls from coming through as well. A crescent moon icon on the top of your iPhone's screen indicates that your iPhone is in Do Not Disturb mode. Here's how to quickly disengage the Do Not Disturb feature and make sure your iPhone's Focus status isn't interfering with your phone calls. 

1. Open the Control Center. 
2. If the Do Not Disturb icon has a purple moon with a white background, tap it to turn off Do Not Disturb on your iPhone.
   
   
3. Now that Do Not Disturb is turned off, you may find that a Focus Mode is also on; if this is the case, tap it.
   
   
4. Tap the three dots in the highlighted Focus Mode.
   
   
5. Tap Settings.
   
   
6. If you see the Phone icon under apps, tap Apps. 
   
   
7. Tap the minus sign on the Phone icon to remove Phone from apps that are silenced. Alternately, tap Allow Notifications From, then Add Apps, then Phone. 
   
   
8. If you want to leave Do Not Disturb and/or Focus Modes on but want to allow phone calls from favorite contacts to go through, you can!

If incoming calls are going straight to voicemail still, there are a few more things to try.

Turn Off Silence Unknown Callers

If your iPhone is sending unknown calls to voicemail, the culprit is often the Silence Unknown Callers setting. It's great to silence unknown callers when you want to stop spam calls, but it can also lead to missing important calls. If you want to stop calls from unsaved numbers going straight to voicemail, here's how.

1. Open the Settings app, then scroll down and tap Phone.
   
   
2. Tap Silence Unknown Callers.
   
   
3. Toggle Silence Unknown Callers to the left; the toggle will turn from green to gray. 
   
   

If you want to keep Silence Unknown Callers on on your iPhone, you can add a contact for each number you want to hear from, so they don't go straight to voicemail. If iPhone goes straight to voicemail still, there are a few more things to try. 

Check Announce Call Settings

If your calls go to voicemail without ringing, there's one more setting to check: the Announce Calls setting. You can have Siri announce your calls always, when you're using headphones or in your car, only when using headphones, or never. I have my Announce Calls feature set to Headphones & Car, because those are my most likely times and locations to miss calls. 

Check Your Blocked Numbers

When you block someone on your iPhone, they'll hear your phone ring and then be sent to voicemail. You won't hear your phone ring at all, and can only access their blocked voicemail by navigating to Phone then Voicemail, then Blocked Messages. 

Here's how to see blocked numbers on your iPhone, so you can make sure you didn't accidentally block a contact. If you find that you blocked someone you didn't mean to, it's easy to unblock them.

Reset Network Settings

When you reset network settings on your iPhone, you can solve internet connectivity issues. Resetting network settings can also remove VPN settings and previously used networks that weren't installed by a configuration profile or mobile device management, which may solve the issue of calls going straight to voicemail on your iPhone. 

Test Your SIM Card

If you have an iPhone 13 or older model, it's possible that the issue of calls going straight to voicemail is being caused by a faulty SIM card (the iPhone 14 series does not have a physical SIM card.). To test if this is the case, remove the SIM card from your iPhone, and insert it into another iPhone. Now, do a few test calls with the iPhone that your SIM is currently in to see if the calls go straight to voicemail. If they do, it's probable that the issue is a faulty SIM card. Contact your cellular service provider to get a replacement SIM card. 

Now that you've gone through all these troubleshooting steps, you should receive all incoming calls. If your phone calls are still going straight to voicemail, contact your cellular service provider to see if there's an outage. If that isn't the case, contact Apple Support to see if your iPhone has a hardware issue that needs to be repaired. Let us know in the comments if there are any other fixes to the problem of phone calls going straight to voicemail that we didn't cover, and be sure to check out our free Tip of the Day for more great phone and voicemail tutorials.