A while ago I made a decision to enable Do Not Disturb mode on my iPhone as a default. What I mean by “as a default” is that I don’t turn it on only at bedtime or only when I’m delivering training, instead I have it turned on most of the time.
I’ve done this because I’ve been receiving too many unwanted calls, mainly from companies trying to sell me insurance and offer me compensation for a not-my-fault minor car accident in 2011. Yes I know I can block the numbers but it’s too late after the event.
The problem with this scenario of course is that there are people that I want to talk to when Do Not Disturb is enabled. Initially I used the option “Allow Calls From Favourites” which can be found in the Do Not Disturb settings however then I decided that the people I wanted to talk to weren’t necessarily the people I wanted in my Favourites list.
So instead I created a contacts group called “DND Exceptions” and added a few of my contacts into it. Now if someone calls and they are a member of that group, the phone will ring/vibrate.
It’s worth noting here that you can’t create and manage groups and group membership via the Contacts app on the iPhone. You either have to do it using the Contacts app on the Mac (ensuring that it and the Contacts app on the iPhone are syncing to the same iCloud account) or login to icloud.com in a browser.
Using icloud.com on a computer (Mac or PC) is fine but what if you only have an iPhone to hand? Opening Safari or Chrome and navigating to icloud.com displays a screen with the following 3 options: Set up iCloud on this device, Open Find My iPhone, Open Find My Friends
To login to icloud you need to request the desktop site. In Chrome tap on the 3 dots icon at the top right of the screen to display a menu. Towards the bottom of the menu is “Request Desktop Site”. Tapping on this option displays the regular icloud.com website. In Safari, tap the Share icon at the bottom of the screen and swipe to the left until you find the Request Desktop Site button.
At this point I thought I was sorted…until I received a phone call from Elaine (who is in my DND Exceptions group) asking my why I was ignoring her texts. When I looked at the Messages app, there was indeed a text message from Elaine however the iPhone had not notified me when it arrived. It turns out that the Allow Calls From relates to phone calls only. It does not extend to text messages.
There is a way to resolve this, using a feature in iOS 10 called Emergency Bypass which lets you pick which notifications (calls or texts) get through to you from a specific contact while DND mode is active. It will also bypass silent mode.
- Open the Contacts app on the iPhone
- Tap on the name of the contact whose text messages you want to receive when in DND mode
- Tap Edit at the top right of the screen
- Tap Text Tone
- Swipe the Emergency Bypass switch (at the top of the screen) to ON
THANK YOU! DND is my fab-fav feature on my iPhone. I keep my phone on DND but could not figure out this work around. Thx again.
Thank you! It was annoying not to receive message alerts.
If I send a message while on dnd will the person still get it?if they reply will I see it???
Hi Christine. Yes and yes!
This is an awesome workaround but just so you know, Emergency Bypass will ring (or text) through even if you’ve set your phone on silent mode. I found this out the hard way while at the theatre during an especially quiet scene! I so wanted to crawl under my chair!
Ha ha! If you turn the volume right down that should solve it
I learned this the hard way at work today, also wanted to crawl under my chair. That’s what I get for having silly ringtones!
I agree, Emergency Bypass is not a good solution as it ignores the silent switch at anytime. We need a setting for messages in the DND exceptions.
Thank you for this article. I was searching for a way to have my texts come through while keeping on dnd. This is wonderful.