Life without smartphones is unimaginable these days. But as these phones bring us a lot of facilities and comfort, unwanted calls and texts often invade our privacy and disturb our mental health.
You have the authority to block an unwanted contact or person! If you are an iPhone user, blocking someone on your iPhone is a safe and steadfast way of preventing them from calling or texting you. However, this doesn’t stop YOU from calling or texting them.
So, you can call or message a contact you blocked on your iPhone. But the other person won’t be able to call back or reply to your messages. There is more to blocking someone on your iPhone. Let’s unravel them together!
Contents
What Does Blocking Someone On an iPhone Mean?
Blocking someone on your iPhone means restricting that person or contact from connecting with you using the iPhone features. By iPhone features, we refer to iMessage
, SMS, FaceTime, regular calls, and emails.
It becomes a one-way communication as you can call or text the blocked contact whenever you want but they can’t. Although the blocked contacts are not notified about it, when they try to connect with you using calls or texts, they don’t get any answers.
This can be a clue that you don’t want to be disturbed. To ensure a hassle-free experience, you can silence unknown callers as well. Blocking someone also gives you the authority to unblock the contact as you wish.
How Does Blocking Someone On iPhone Work?
When you block someone on your iPhone, that person loses the power to contact you through messaging or calling. A loophole here is that the blocked person can still send you voicemails that you won’t be notified about. So what exactly happens when you block them? Find out below.
iMessage and SMS
A blocked number can’t send you any sort of messages. When the person sends something, it will show as sent from his/her end. But you won’t get the notification or text. You, on the other hand, can send texts like before.
FaceTime
When a blocked person calls you on FaceTime, the call will continue to ring from the caller’s end but you won’t get the call on your phone. In this case, too, you can FaceTime the blocked contact as you want.
Regular calls
Regular calls will go into voicemails. The caller will hear the ringing for once and find the call being forwarded to voicemail.
You won’t get any notification about the voicemail from a blocked contact. Whether you want to check or discard it depends on you. You can call the blocked contact like before.
The blocked contact won’t be able to send any emails on your Apple email address. If the person has a different email ID that is not associated with the iPhone, he/she can use it to send you emails.
Third-party applications
The blocked person can contact you through third-party applications. They can use Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or other similar applications to contact you.
Can You Text A Contact That You Blocked On iPhone?
Alongside calling, you can freely text a blocked contact from your iPhone. Blocking the contact does not change anything regarding calling or texting from your side. You can text the contact anytime you want the same as before.
The blocked person can see your message and even reply to it. But the replied message won’t ever reach you. You won’t even get any notification regarding this.
If you message someone from your iMessage, you won’t see the message being delivered. It will stay as ‘sent’ as the carrier blocks the response from the blocked contact’s end. But the person will get your message.
So to reiterate, blocking a contact takes the right of calling or texting away from the person associated with the contact. But it doesn’t stop you from calling or texting them.
How Do You Unblock A Contact You Blocked On iPhone?
Unblocking a contact on an iPhone requires the same steps required for blocking it. Just in this case, the user will be selecting ‘unblock this caller.’ Find out how you can unblock a contact from phone, message, FaceTime, and mail below.
Unblock from phone
Go to the phone app. Select the ‘recent’ option. Then locate the ‘info’ icon beside the contact you want to unblock. Select ‘unblock this caller’ and confirm.
On the other hand, you can simply open the contacts, select or add the number and unblock it.
Unblock from FaceTime
To unblock from FaceTime, open the app. Locate and select the ‘info’ icon beside the blocked contact. Find the ‘unblock this caller’ option and select to unblock.
Unblock from messages
Unblocking someone from messages is simple. You just have to open the conversation with the particular contact. Open the contact and then press the ‘info’ icon. Finally, select the ‘unblock this caller’ option.
Unblock from mail
To unblock someone from the mail, open the app, select the contact and then the ‘unblock this contact’ option to unblock it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Blocking unwanted contacts or spam numbers sometimes become necessary. When you block a contact, you have the authority to unblock it whenever you want. Different users have different queries regarding the topic. Let’s check a few of them.
Will the person you blocked on your iPhone get a notification?
No. Blocking someone doesn’t notify the person about it. According to Apple support, if you were sharing your location with the particular contact, blocking them will send a notification that you stopped sharing it.
How do you know if a person has blocked you?
There is actually no definite way of telling if someone blocked you. You can call or text the same way as before. But your calls will immediately go to voicemail after barely one or two rings. If this keeps happening, you can take it as a possibility.
How do you find a voicemail sent by a contact that you blocked?
Apple support explains that the voicemail sent from a blocked number goes to a separate folder named ‘blocked messages.’ You can access the folder by going to the voicemail, scrolling down, and then tapping on the blocked messages option.
What happens to the calls and texts when you unblock the contact?
The calls and texts sent by the blocked contact during the blocking period can’t be revived. As mentioned before, you can still find and listen to the voicemails. But, you won’t be able to receive the texts or find any records in your call history.
Final Words
Blocking someone on an iPhone is a feature that allows the users to protect their privacy. It gives you the authority to choose who should be able to contact you freely and who should not.
Remember that by blocking someone on your iPhone, you are only restricting the contact from calling or texting through some specific iPhone features. If the person is connected to you by any third-party applications, he/she can contact you through them.
However, almost all of these apps allow the user to block contacts separately. So if you want to shut someone off of your life for good, you can block them from every other app separately.