Arguably one of the very best new features in iOS 7 is the long-awaited ability to block unwanted phone calls, FaceTime prompts, and Messages on your iPhone or iPad. I cannot tell yu how many times I’ve wished I could do this in the past – and now, it’s not only possible…but as easy as making a few taps on your screen!
There are a variety of ways to block unwanted calls and messages, all of which are fairly similar. The below scenarios should serve to provide a fairly thorough tutorial for the majority of users.
One way to block unwanted solicitations on your device is by going through the built-in iOS Settings app. To do this, simply launch Settings, navigate to the Phone pane, and select the Blocked option in the following screen. From there, you c an view your entire list of blocked numbers and Apple IDs and add new ones using listings from the iOS Contacts app.
This is the easiest way to get started if you know there are several contacts you’d like to prevent from calling or messaging you right out the gate.
The second method for blocking an unwanted solicitor takes place in the Phone app on your device. The scenario here might be that you’ve just received a call from, say, a telemarketer, or am annoying high school acquaintance, and want to quickly block whatever number they just tried to call you from.
To do this, simply select the number from your list of recent calls, and tap the small blue “i” mark next to it. On the next screen, simply scroll down, and you will see the “Block this Caller” option. Select that, and push the big red button on the next screen.
Note: Unlike the first method, this method does NOT require you to add the undesired number as a contact on your device – which, considering you are blocking them, you may well not want to do in the first place.
The third method that we will cover is blocking a sender from within the iMessage app (this is virtually the same process used to blocking a FaceTime caller, with some additional similarities covered by method 2).
For this method, you’ll want to locate and open a message from the number or email address you would like to block. Next, click the blue “Contact” option by scrolling to the top of the screen. You’ll be taken to a pane that lists all the details you have about that sender. Scrolling to the bottom of that list will allow you to quickly block that sender from pestering you with any further messages.
For more insight, tech writer, 1Password herald, and all around brilliant gentleman David Chartier has shared a few additional nuggets of wisdom over at his blog Finer Things in Tech:
…tapping a contact will add all of their phone numbers and email addresses at once, so there’s a trick you can use to save some time when it comes to random addresses not yet assigned to a contact:
create a new contact, name it something like “Undesirable”
add all unwanted numbers and emails to this new contact
whenever you make significant updates to your new contact, re-add them to the Blocked list (no, it doesn’t update automatically)
That’s all there is to it! I hope you found this as useful as I did! Enjoy!
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