Blocking a phone number or email address on iOS prevents the number from contacting you by phone, FaceTime, or text message. It’s easy enough to block a number in iOS 10. Some apps now even let you block spam numbers or numbers without caller ID automatically. Unblocking a number, though, is a different story especially if you can’t remember the contact.
Buried in Settings, your iPhone keeps a list of all the numbers you’ve blocked. Here is where you can find that list and unblock numbers one by one if needed.
Unblock Phone Numbers in Settings
First, open Settings on your iOS device. Scroll to Phone.
Now choose Call Blocking & Identification.
Here you’ll find a list of numbers you’ve blocked. Additionally, if you use apps to manage blocked numbers or spam, you might see it at the top as well.
Tap Edit at the top right to edit your block list.
Tap the red symbol to the left of a number or email on the block list. You can only do this one at a time.
Finally, tap Unblock as it appears next to the contact. Doing so will allow phone calls, messages and FaceTime calls from that number.
One last tip: your block list is also available in your Messages settings as well as FaceTime settings. Just tap Blocked in either of these to get the same list as in Phone settings.
Third-Party Apps
If having to block or unblock numbers continues to be a recurring issue, you might want to download an app that can manage all of these for you. I use Mr. Number, but there are others available. Search “CallKit” in the App Store for a lengthy list of options.
Apps like Mr. Number can automatically block spam calls or calls without any caller ID. They also let you report numbers you suspect could be spam and block numbers on your own. These apps tend to offer far better management of blocked numbers than the iOS Settings does.
Back in Phone > Call Blocking & Identification settings, these apps using iOS 10’s CallKit appear at the top if you have any installed. Here you can enable or disable whether they’re allowed to block calls and provide their own caller ID. If enabled, numbers and email addresses you block within the apps automatically add to the iOS list in Settings.
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