If you have a few text message conversations that you’re constantly receiving alerts from, the Hide Alerts setting in iMessage is helpful.
This will hide alerts for the entire conversation (contact or group chat). The message won’t show up on your lock screen or notification center, and the sender won’t know you have hidden the notifications.
Do Not Disturb Mode
Do Not Disturb Mode is a great way to take a break from your phone while still staying aware of the things that need your attention. This can be especially helpful when you’re in a meeting or working on a big project.
You can customize Do Not Disturb Mode to fit your needs, allowing you to set a specific period of time during which your iPhone will stay silent. You can also use it to silence calls or push notifications from specific people, such as your spouse or parents.
Another useful feature is Emergency Bypass, which allows you to enable calls and messages from a specific contact even when Do Not Disturb is turned on. This is a great option for family members or important people in your life, as it ensures you always get contacted during an emergency.
To enable Emergency Bypass, open the Contacts app and tap on a contact that you want to allow calls and messages from, then scroll down to Ringtone and tap the switch. You can do this for all contacts, or only for one specific contact.
If you only need to disable Do Not Disturb for certain contacts, you can do that through the Messages App. To do so, simply open a conversation thread and tap the arrow next to the contact’s name. You’ll see a toggle button that says Hide Alerts, and you can toggle it on or off for each contact.
For those who use their phone while driving, Do Not Disturb can help prevent distractions while you’re on the road. You can set your iPhone to automatically switch to Do Not Disturb when it’s connected to your car Bluetooth, or you can opt for a manual switch that will let you manually turn on the feature.
If you’re not sure whether Do Not Disturb is working for you, try restarting your phone and seeing if it resolves the issue. You can also update your iPhone to the latest version of iOS, which usually includes bug fixes and patches that address performance-related issues.
Silence Notifications
If you have a contact that doesn’t text you at all, they may get a strange message that says “has notifications silenced.” But what does this mean?
iOS 16 has a new feature called Focus mode that lets you turn off notifications on your phone to help you work, study, sleep, or whatever else without distractions. While this is a great feature, it’s important to remember that Focus mode also means someone else can silence their notifications on the same phone.
That can be a real hassle, especially when you’re trying to reach someone who you’ve been communicating with for a while. But it’s possible to get around this problem.
One way is to open their text conversation and tap their name. This will bring up a list of their chats, including the ones that have Hide Alerts enabled for them.
You can then select the one you want to mute. Once you do this, a moon icon should appear next to the text message on the screen.
This is a bug in the iOS software that makes it seem like a person’s phone has been muted when in reality, they aren’t receiving any notification for that message. That can be frustrating, but it’s actually pretty simple to fix.
In this guide, we’ll cover what this means for you and your contacts and how to avoid this annoying bug. Plus, we’ll show you how to disable Focus modes and stop the ‘Has Notifications Silenced’ notice from showing up in your friends’ text messages.
To do this, head to Settings > Focus, then tap the toggle for Shared Across Devices. When this is enabled, your Focus modes and status will be shared among devices that use the same Apple ID.
That’s the reason you might see a ‘Has Notifications Silenced’ warning when trying to text your friend. If that’s the case, make sure to disable Focus modes and the Shared Across Devices toggle on your own device and check if the issue goes away. If not, it’s a bug in the iOS software that you can fix on your own or by calling Apple support.
Hide Messages
Hide Alerts is a feature that allows you to hide messages from certain contacts, numbers or groups. This way, you can focus on important conversations while avoiding distractions.
The Hide Alerts feature works like Apple’s Do Not Disturb (DND) feature, which also allows you to block notifications for a specific time period. However, unlike DND, Hide Alerts is a stand-alone feature.
You can mute or hide a contact or group’s messages by opening the Messages app and then clicking on the Detail button in the top right corner of the screen. This will then display the Hide Alerts option for the contact or group in question.
Alternatively, you can also tap the person’s name at the top of a message thread to open the taskbar and then toggle the Hide Alerts option on or off. You will then see a bell icon with a slash next to the contact’s name and will be unable to receive messages from that contact or group.
While there are a few different ways to hide messages on your iPhone, the best way to keep them secure is to switch to an app that prioritizes privacy over convenience. Messaging apps like Signal and Telegram, for example, offer end-to-end encryption so no one can read your private texts. These apps can also be password-protected so they won’t be accessed by anyone who knows your phone passcode.
Another good way to avoid receiving unwanted text messages is to turn off the Text Message Forwarding feature on your phone. This will prevent other devices from seeing your iPhone’s text messages, which means you won’t miss any important ones if you share your device with your spouse or children.
A final way to hide messages on your iPhone is to use a third-party app that can protect your messages from being hacked or accessed by others. A couple of the best options are Shady Contacts and Hide SMS.
Shady Contacts is a very secure messaging app that keeps your call logs and records safe. It also comes with a PIN that you must enter before you can access your messages. While the app isn’t perfect, it does a good job at preventing your personal information from being stolen or compromised.
Hide Contacts
The built-in iOS nickname field lets you hide the real name of an iPhone contact to protect your privacy. It’s a very useful feature and can be incredibly helpful if you don’t want to reveal your private data when someone else picks up your device.
If you’re not comfortable using the iPhone’s nickname field, there are other ways to protect your contacts from prying eyes. One of them is to use a third-party app that lets you import different types of data, including contacts, images, messages, and more.
Another option is to categorize your contacts into separate groups. This is a very handy way to keep them organized, and also to make it easier to find them.
To do this, first create a new contact group in iCloud. Set the name as you wish and move all of the contacts you’re trying to hide to this group.
Once you’ve done that, head back to the iPhone’s Contacts app and tap Groups from the top left. Select the new group that you created and then tap ‘Hide All’.
This will hide all of your iCloud Contacts from the iPhone’s Contacts app and make it display only the ones in your newly-created group. The remaining iCloud Contacts will still be available to view, but you’ll be able to see them only in the Contacts app when you tap ‘Show All Contacts’.
If you’re using the iPhone in a public place or you don’t want your contacts to appear in someone’s contact list, you can turn off ‘Show in App Switcher’ from Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars. This will prevent your recent and favorite contacts from appearing in the App Switcher when you’re out in the open, and will help to ensure that no-one can access any of your personal information.
Alternatively, you can disable alerts for certain contacts in Messages by turning off ‘Hidden Alerts’ on them. This will stop the alerts from popping up when you receive a call or text from that contact. It’s not as effective as the other methods, but it is an easy way to hide your incoming notifications and alerts from specific contacts.