Set “Do Not Disturb” to Always Be Silent on the iPhone

Do Not Disturb is an excellent feature of iOS that, when turned on, mutes notifications and alerts for all incoming calls, messages, and apps. It’s easy to toggle on and off, providing for some digital peace and quiet with a quick switch. But if you’re actively using an unlocked iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch while Do Not Disturb is on, the alerts, calls, and notifications will still make sounds, which may defeat the purpose of the setting for some users, and can make it appear as if the Do Not Disturb feature is not working at all. That’s what we’ll settle here, insuring that Do Not Disturb remains always silent when it’s set on. Even if the iOS device is actively in use, all phone calls, texts, and alerts will automatically be silenced (unless they’re on the exceptions list, of course). It’s a simple settings adjustment available in new versions of iOS, but one that is often overlooked:

• Open “Settings” and head to “Do Not Disturb”
• Scroll down to the “Silence” section and choose “Always”
• Exit out of Settings

Now when Do Not Disturb is enabled with the “Always Silent” option, everything will be silenced, regardless of whether the iPhone is actively in use or not, and you won’t need to manually silence calls or notifications that come in when the feature is on and you’re actively using the device. This is probably the expectation of the feature for most users to begin with, since it’s sort of like muting the device anyway, except that specific contacts and repeat calls can be exempted from Do Not Disturb, thus accounting for truly important situations.

For the unfamiliar, the simplest way to toggle Do Not Disturb ON and OFF by swiping up from either the Lock Screen or from anywhere else in iOS to summon Control Center, then tapping on the crescent moon icon.

To really set it up Do Not Disturb properly you’ll want to set schedules and exceptions as we covered here when the feature first came out, this lets specified callers get through even if the feature is turned on, plus it can allow the feature to enable and disable itself on a set timeline, like the evening.

iPhone users will probably get the most use out of this, because the feature is a great way to avoid phone calls and text messages arriving at inopportune times, but of course the trick also applies to the iPad and iPod touch.