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Mute or block your ex on iPhone: Messages and calls

How to block your ex’s texts and calls on iPhone, why Hide Alerts shows them you’ve silenced them, and quieter ways to stop seeing their name. From Apple’s own guides.

Updated 2 min readSources at the end

On iPhone, the obvious “mute” has a catch: the other person can see it. Here’s what each option does. The steps come from Apple’s support pages and iPhone User Guide for iOS 26 and iOS 27, checked on 25 September 2026.

Which one to pick

  • Unpin them and take them out of Favorites if you just don’t want their name to be one tap away.
  • Set their text tone to None to stop the sound without the obvious mute.
  • Block if you want their calls and texts to stop.
  • Hide Alerts only if you don’t mind them knowing. See below.

Hide Alerts shows them you’ve silenced them

Hide Alerts mutes one conversation in Messages: swipe left on it and tap the mute button, or open it, tap their name at the top and switch on Hide Alerts. But Apple is clear that “senders receive a note indicating that you have notifications silenced.”1 If you don’t want them to see that, use one of the other options.

Quieter options

Unpin the conversation: in Messages, press and hold the pinned conversation and tap Unpin.2

Remove them from Favorites: in the Phone app’s Classic layout, tap Favorites and swipe their name all the way to the left. In the Unified layout, tap Calls, then Edit, then Edit Favorites, and tap the remove button on their contact.3

Silence just their texts: open the conversation, tap their name at the top, then Info, Edit, Edit Contact Info, and set Text Tone and Haptics to None. Apple offers this as a way to mute a conversation. Its guide doesn’t say whether the sender sees anything.1

Block them

In Messages: open the conversation, tap their name at the top, scroll down and tap Block Caller.

In Phone: tap Recents, tap their number or contact (or the Info button), scroll down and tap Block Caller.

Or go to Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Blocked Contacts, tap Add Blocked Contact and choose them.

They aren’t notified. Their calls and texts don’t reach you. They can still leave a voicemail, but you won’t get a notification for it.4

If you still want to text them

Write it somewhere it can’t be sent first: write it, then burn it. There’s more in what to do when you want to text your ex.

Sources

  1. Apple iPhone User Guide: Stop, mute, and change message notifications on iPhone. ↩ ↩2

  2. Apple iPhone User Guide: Keep track of messages on iPhone. ↩

  3. Apple iPhone User Guide: Make a call on iPhone. ↩

  4. Apple Support: Block phone numbers, contacts, and emails on your iPhone or iPad. ↩

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