How to Mute a Call on Apple Watch

Since the Apple Watch is tied to your iPhone, you’ve likely noticed that phone calls can be made or answered on your wrist. While you might know how to answer or reject phone calls on the Apple Watch, did you know that you can silence or mute a call to your Apple Watch too? These are important tricks to know so that if your wrist starts buzzing and chiming and making a ringing sound while you’re either in a public place, or wanting some peace and quiet, you can quickly mute the Apple Watch.

We’re going to show you two different ways to mute and silence calls on your Apple Watch, and they’re both a little different but equally useful to know.

Mute a Call on Apple Watch by Covering the Screen

This is often the easiest way to mute a call that’s coming into your Apple Watch, it’s super simple:

• When a call rings on Apple Watch, place your palm over the watch screen to mute the call

You will need to make sure that you have the “Cover to Mute” feature enabled, which is on by default on Apple Watch. If not, go to Apple Watch Settings > Gestures > toggle on “Cover to Mute”.

This feature gesture has been around for “>a while, so if you’re a longtime Apple Watch user you may already be familiar with it.

Mute Inbound Calls on Apple Watch with Side Button

Another approach to silencing inbound calls on Apple Watch is to press a button when a call comes in:

• When a call rings on Apple Watch, press the side rotating button to mute the call

This trick may be more familiar to those of you coming from a deep iPhone background where you’re accustomed to silencing iPhone calls by hitting the Volume buttons.

One advantage to the button press approach is that you can often do it one handed, depending on where your Apple Watch sits on your wrist, by simply flexing your hand and wrist up, or doing a push-up motion against a wall, or even against an object, and this can be useful when you’re working out or your other hand is busy.

Important: these tips work to mute incoming calls on a per-call basis

It’s important to note these tips will mute incoming calls only on a per-call basis. They will not permanently mute the Apple Watch, or phone calls on the Apple Watch.

If you’re looking to disable phone calls to your Apple Watch, that can be accomplished separately.