How to Fix iPhone Going Straight to Voicemail Without Ringing

What To Know

  • If your iPhone calls are going straight to voicemail, swipe down from the top-right corner of your phone and make sure Do Not Disturb is off, Focus allows calls, and the Airplane mode icon is gray.
  • Phone going straight to voicemail still? Open Settings, Apps, Phone, tap Silence Unknown Callers, then toggle it off.

* This article is from our Tip of the Day newsletter. . *

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.

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Easy Ways to Fix 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 causes! Make sure your iPhone ringer is on and that the volume is turned up high enough to hear. 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.

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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. 
  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.

    make sure airplane mode icon is gray

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. Tap the Focus Mode icon.

    tap focus in control center
  3. Make sure Do Not Disturb is not on. If it is, tap it to turn it off.

    turn off do not disturb if it's on
  4. If another Focus Mode is highlighted, tap the three dots in the highlighted Focus Mode.

    tap the three dots next to the highlighted iphone focus mode
  5. Tap Settings.

    tap the iphone focus settings
  6. If you see the Phone icon under apps, tap Apps

    tap apps in the focus status iphone
  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

    tap the minus by phone to let phone calls ring even in iphone focus mode
  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 Apps.

    tap apps in iphone settings
  2. Tap Phone.

    tap phone in iphone apps settings
  3. Tap Silence Unknown Callers.

    tap silence unknown callers in iphone app settings
  4. Toggle Silence Unknown Callers to the left; the toggle will turn from green to gray. 

    toggle silence unknown callers to the left 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 opening the Phone app, tapping the Voicemail tab at the bottom, then scrolling down and tapping 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.

FAQ

  • Can you purposely go straight to voicemail? If you are calling someone, you cannot choose to go straight to voicemail. However, if someone is calling you, you can send the call straight to voicemail.
  • Am I blocked if I call and it goes straight to voicemail? Not necessarily. Learn how to tell if someone blocked you, and learn how to know for sure.
  • Why is my voicemail not working on my iPhone? You may not have set up voicemail correctly, your carrier settings and iOS may not be current, and there are a few other things to check.
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Author Details

Tamlin Day's picture

Author Details

Tamlin Day

Tamlin Day is a feature web writer for iPhone Life and a regular contributor to iPhone Life magazine. A prolific writer of tips, reviews, and in-depth guides, Tamlin has written hundreds of articles for iPhone Life. From iPhone settings to recommendations for the best iPhone-compatible gear to the latest Apple news, Tamlin's expertise covers a broad spectrum. 

Before joining iPhone Life, Tamlin received his BFA in Media & Communications as well as a BA in Graphic Design from Maharishi International University (MIU), where he edited MIU's literary journal, Meta-fore. With a passion for teaching, Tamlin has instructed young adults, college students, and adult learners on topics ranging from spoken word poetry to taking the perfect group selfie. Tamlin's first computer, a Radioshack Color Computer III, was given to him by his father. At 13, Tamlin built his first PC from spare parts. He is proud to put his passion for teaching and tech into practice as a writer and educator at iPhone Life.