iPhone tip: Use a Silent Ringtone to Screen Calls in Your Sleep

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Have you ever wished your iPhone would ring only when certain people call? Here’s how to do it:

  1. Download the “Silence” ringtone here: silence.m4r
  2. Copy this file into the Ringtones section of your iTunes. (Click to enlarge.)

    adding_ringtone_to_itunes
  3. Sync your iPhone with iTunes to load the ringtone.
  4. On your iPhone, change your ringtone to “Silence” (under Settings -> Sounds -> Ringtone). You’ll no longer hear your phone calls.

    2_iphone_silence_ringtone
  5. For each person whose calls you still want to hear, change his or her Custom Ringtone to something audible: Click the name in your contact list, choose Ringtone, then choose something besides Default

    3_iphone_important_caller 4_iphone_audible_ringtone

Now you can screen calls in your sleep. Because Sunday afternoons are for napping.

UPDATE (Apr 14, 2011): I haven’t used it, but MrNumber.com appears to be an interesting service for identifying phone numbers belonging to telemarketers and blocking them.

260 thoughts on “iPhone tip: Use a Silent Ringtone to Screen Calls in Your Sleep”

  1. Pingback: What's the Best Way to Block a Number from Calling My Cellphone?

  3. I just tried this and the ringtone wouldn’t show up in i/Tunes or sync. The solution was to drag and drop the silence.m4r file from within Windows Explorer directly into the Ringtones library within iTunes. After syncing again, the “silence” ringtone is listed as a Custom ringtone on my iPhone. Perfect! Couldn’t have started without this great help.
    Reply ↓

  4. Pingback: How to: Blocking a Number from Calling Your Cellphone? | iPhone 3G Tricks

  5. I did this and loved it …until I downloaded the next updates from apple and it was automatically erased from my phone for me. They really need to get a clue that we don’t want them to control our phones for us.
    Reply ↓
  7. THANK YOU so much for sharing this with us! How wonderful that there are still a few caring, considerate people–like you!–left in this crazy world.
    Reply ↓
  8. Thanks!

    There are several organizations where I’d just rather not ever hear their rings (political or charitable organizations that want yet more money, companies which I have business with but don’t want to buy anything additional from, etc.)

    I’ve created a contact called “IGNORE”, and add multiple organizations to the phone fields. (of course sometimes an organization won’t have just have one number they call from – doesn’t work for all situations)

    Since I’ve assigned your slient ringtone to “IGNORE” I’ve been blessed with never having them annoy me. (and then I chuckle to myself when I notice later that IGNORE is in my missed call list.

    Mwhahahahah!

    Reply ↓
  13. You just saved my day! I have been receiving these phone calls from this specific telemarketing company (I think they are crazy!) more than 10 times a day, it is very annoying!

    Now, if someone can solve my next question, that will be ver much appreciated. “HOW to assign silent ringtone to “unkown” number?” Unknown number – meaning they just shown as “Unknown” on your phone instead of their number. I have these useless prank calls too. I think I must have left my number on some internet page by mistake! These telemarketers they just don’t give up. I respect their work, but they should respect our privacy too. NO means NO!

    Reply ↓
        • That is exactly what Richard said to do in the tutorial, which would effectively silence the unknown callers along with all other known callers who you haven’t changed to an audible ringer. I’m just puzzled as to why Richard replied as if he didn’t know how to do it, when his tutorial gave step by step instructions on how to do it…
          Reply ↓
          • You’re right; the instructions in the post cover this issue too. I must have been thinking that I don’t know of a way to apply a specific ringtone (e.g. silence) to the “Unknown” caller, if that were wanted.
  15. Thanks for this. The IPhone format made it really easy to use. Like stated above, if Apple would just allow its Iphone users to block certain people from ringing their phones it would make the world a better place… ;)
    Reply ↓
  22. Thanks for this! I use it in the timer app to remind me that the phone is in silent ringer mode (the switch on the upper left side of the iphone that turns the ringer off). I use silent ringer mode for meetings and in movies. AFAIK, you cannot set this mode to expire automatically (I had this in an old Motorola phone) and I often forget the phone is silent long after the meeting or movie is over. The best I could do is set an alarm to remind me. But in silent ringer mode mode, the alarm will still make a sound, which is not cool if I’m still in a ‘keep quiet’ environment. With your silent ringtone, I set an alarm which will vibrate, but not make a sound. This is perfect for my use!
    Reply ↓
  23. Wonderful! Exactly what I’m looking for, there’re so many telemarketing cold calls and now I’m grouping them all under a single caller “Spam” and assign a silent ring tone to them. THANKS a bunch!!!
    Katherine
    Reply ↓
  30. i get scam calls from the Czech republic everyday ( 00420239011111 ). As my network provider refuses to deal with it, this is the perfect way to deal with them until Ofcom nails their butts. Thank you!
    Reply ↓
  31. This is just a very little thing, but it works wonders! I could never have thought of this myself, so thank you very much for sharing.

    It also feels rather good that, judging from the comments, I’m not the only person out there who is weary of unwanted calls. All People Who Don’t Want To Be Bothered By Telemarketes, unite!

    Reply ↓
  32. Actually these days I have thought of doing the same thing. Now instead of making this silent sound for myself I found it here and could just download your silence-file from this website and I’m thankful for it. Thanks man.
    Reply ↓
  33. Thank you! I’ve dropped my phone countless times and now the silent switch doesn’t work. This is the perfect solution so I can still have my alarm set. I hope I can use it for texts too…
    Reply ↓
  34. Thanks for the download. I followed your instructions & it did not show up in ringtones on my IPhone 4. Any thoughts? Thank you
    Reply ↓
  35. Thanks so much for this solution, and everyone for their comments (the idea to group all the unwanted numbers under one category “ignore” or “spam” etc.). I’m tired of getting repeat calls from this one number and didn’t know what to do about it!
    Reply ↓
  37. You are great for providing this ringtone to us! You rock. I have been searching and searching for this. Apple needs to get it together. THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    Reply ↓
  40. I have an iPhone 3GS and iTunes 9.2.1. I downloaded the ringtone (Firefox browser); it went to my desktop; I dragged it to the ringtones screen on iTunes without any difficulty. I synced my phone and…..nothing. Any idea of what I should do to make this work?
    Reply ↓
  45. A friend linked me to your page and directions for uploading this silent ringtone. I was devasted when I switched from my Blackberry Curve to my iPhone 4 yesterday and realized there wasn’t an option to silence calls while I sleep during the day (3rd shifter), and yet still allow important numbers like my childrens’ schools to ring through while I’m sleeping. This totally solved my problem!! Thanks!!!
    Reply ↓
  49. Thanks for that. I’ve got some nutbag that likes to phone at 2 in the morning but I can’t turn my phone off because of work. So this is a real lifesaver! What I can’t understand is why Apple saw fit to give us the option to assign ‘None’ to a particular contact’s text tone but not the ringtone. That’s the kind of ill thought out crap I expect from Microsoft!
    Reply ↓

  50. Pingback: Free way to block calls, sms and mms?

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