To only allow calls from contacts on iPhone, set up a Focus: open Settings, tap Focus, choose Do Not Disturb (or make a new Focus), tap People, and set Allow Calls From to All Contacts, Favourites or Allowed People Only. Everyone else goes straight to voicemail without the phone ringing.
How to Only Allow Calls From Selected Contacts on iPhone (iOS 15 and Later)
- Open Settings and tap Focus.
- Tap Do Not Disturb, or tap + to create a Focus just for this (for example “Contacts Only”).
- Tap People, make sure Allow Notifications From is selected, and add the people you want to hear from.
- Tap Allow Calls From and pick Allowed People Only, Favourites or All Contacts.
- Turn on Allow Repeated Calls if you want a second call from the same number within three minutes to ring through, which is useful for emergencies.
- Switch the Focus on from Control Centre, or tap Add Schedule to have it turn on by itself at night or during work hours.
If you want to silence every number that isn’t in your contacts all the time, rather than on a schedule, turn on Silence Unknown Callers under Settings, Apps, Phone (on iOS 17 and earlier it’s under Settings, Phone). Those calls go to voicemail and show in your Recents list.
To stop one particular number for good, see how to block calls on iPhone.
Older Versions: iOS 6 and iOS 7
This post is great: it shows you how to only allow calls from selected contacts in iphone, silencing everyone else.
to set this up on your iphone,
with ios7:
settings > do not disturb >
in ios7 you have options for ‘manual’ and ‘scheduled’
manual means that you can turn this feature on and off yourself, and scheduled means that your phone will automatically enable do not disturb on its own
in ios6 go to
settings > notifications > do not disturb
in ios6 you dont have the manual option, only the scheduled one. to enable do not disturb in ios6 go to settings > toggle the ‘do not disturb’ option.
in both ios 6 and ios7 in the do not disturb options you have three optioins for the ‘allow calls from’ option:
if you pick ‘favourites’ then your iphone will only ring when people you have marked as favourites call.
if you pick from the ‘groups’ then your iphone will only ring when contacts added to those groups call.