It can be very annoying to have your iPhone constantly pinging notifications. Sometimes, you may wish to disable these notifications to disconnect from your iPhone. Other times you might need your iPhone to be quiet for important meetings or screenings.
This article will help you to understand how to use your iPhone’s silent mode.
What is Silent Mode actually doing on an iPhone?
By putting your iPhone in silent mode you are preventing it from making any noises. This can be used for both system sounds like keyboard clicks or notification sounds. You will still receive all notifications, texts, and calls to your iPhone visually.
Even though your iPhone is turned off, you can still listen to music or play videos on it.
The silent mode will make your iPhone vibrate rather than make a sound. This allows you to still see if any notifications have been received on your iPhone, even if it is disrupting anyone else.
How to Silence Your iPhone
There are many ways to turn off your iPhone. The dedicated switch that is located above the volume buttons may be familiar to you. This is the Ring/Silent switch.
If you don’t love the switch or you prefer to use it for auto-lock, you can use the volume buttons instead.
Use the Ring/Silent Switch
The Ring/Silent switch can be found above the volume buttons located on the left-hand side of your iPhone. As the position has not changed, you’ll find it here on all iPhones.
Flip the switch to the back of your iPhone in order to silence it. An orange indicator will let you know when the switch has been flipped.
You’ll see a notification that your iPhone is now in silent mode.
You can also un-silence the iPhone by doing it in reverse. To turn off silent mode, simply move the switch towards the front of your iPhone.
The Volume Buttons
Although you cannot use the volume buttons to stop your iPhone’s ringer from ringing, other sounds can be muted.
The volume buttons can be used to control the volume of sound and media content on your device. The volume buttons at the bottom are volume down and volume up, respectively.
Disabling the camera shutter sound within the Camera App is an example of how you can utilize the volume buttons.
You can also turn your ringer down to the lowest volume using the volume buttons. The same process applies, but you should not do this while there are other sounds.
To adjust the volume of other sounds, simply go to the Home Screen.
What about turning off the Vibrate?
Sometimes the vibrations can be as bothersome as the ringer on your iPhone. Your iPhone’s vibration alerts may sometimes make the same noise when it is placed on a desk. It is a good idea to also turn off vibrate in your iPhone.
It’s easy to do this:
- You can simply go to the Setting app.
- Tap Sounds, Haptics near the top.
- Once you have reached this page, disable the toggle for VIBRATE ON SILENT.
This will stop the iPhone from vibrating even when it is in silent mode.
You can disable vibrations for iPhone ringers that are on. Just turn off the toggle for Ring. This will prevent your iPhone vibrating when it sounds the notification sound.
These settings can be modified as often as necessary. You can turn off vibrations temporarily and have them come back on after a while.
How to Silence Specific Apps
iOS offers the option to disable specific apps to stop them vibrating or making notification sounds. This can be done in the Settings.
To silence a certain app:
- Head to Setting.
- Tap on Notifications.
- Once you have opened this page, scroll up or down to locate the app settings you want.
- After you’ve found the app, tap the appname.
- On this screen you will see the toggle for sounds. Switch this to off.
Doing this will disable that app’s ability to make any sounds or vibrations. No matter which mode you are using on your iPhone, this is true. Unfortunately, neither of the options can be turned off by itself.
Do You Want Silent Mode, or Do Not Disturb
Do Not Disturb is another option. Do Not Disturb can be used to silence all notifications. You can either set Do Not Disturb up on a timer or manually switch it on/off.
You can also change Do Not Disturb features to allow messages and calls to be sent while the feature is active. You can have the feature activated while driving or when your iPhone locks. It’s very flexible.
The Do Not Disturb program is useful for those times when your iPhone needs to be silenced for a set time each day or for a short time during the day. You won’t forget to turn the switch off, and it’s not possible for your phone to get lost or misplaced.
A Quick Summary
There are several ways to silence an iPhone. You can use the ringer button to instantly turn off notifications sounds, or the volume buttons for silence to other media sounds.
You can disable the vibrations if you find them annoying. Do Not Disturb will save you a lot of hassle when silencing your iPhone. Additionally, you can adjust settings for specific apps.
