It’s possible to call someone even if they’ve blocked your number on their iPhone, because the iOS blocking feature relies on your caller ID being visible…and you can hide it pretty easily. Whether this is advisable, ethical or even legal is another matter.
In this article, we explain how to hide your caller ID and bypass a call block on iPhone – but this is only for emergencies. Please don’t get in trouble with the law.
Note: The iOS Silence Unknown Callers feature means that the method described here will probably not work. If the person you are calling has this feature enabled and your number is not in their contacts, their phone will not ring. Find out how to silence unknown callers here.
What is iOS call blocking?
iOS 7 introduced a useful new feature: the ability to easily block phone numbers from nuisance callers. We explain how to do this in our article How to block a number on iPhone. This feature has been retained in every iOS update since.
But if you’re the one who’s been blocked (to find out, read How to Tell if Someone Has Blocked You), is there a way to bypass the block and get your call through in an emergency? If you have had a serious falling out with a loved one and now need to urgently tell them about a family illness, for example. Or if you want to return the engagement ring to your ex-fiancé but he was so upset that he blocked your number.
In fact, it’s incredibly easy – and really worrying – to bypass iOS’ number blocking feature. But before explaining how it works, one last warning.
Is it legal to bypass a call block?
The method we explain is to hide your caller ID, which is a simple feature available to everyone. This in itself is completely legal. However, it is entirely possible that using this method to call someone after they have made it clear that they do not wish to be contacted will put you in an awkward situation at some point; this could be considered harassment. That’s before we even get into the ethical side of things.
Simply put, we only endorse the use of this method in the most extreme emergency situations. Please respect people’s privacy and know that if you continue to call someone after they have made it clear they don’t want you to, and have even blocked your number, you are heading towards a restraining order. Macmonde assumes no responsibility for the legal consequences of harassing behavior.
Hide your caller ID
Before you begin, be aware that while this method gets you past the blockage itself, there is no guarantee that they will actually resume. Your number will not appear, but the iPhone will indicate that the caller ID has been hidden. This seems suspicious to most of us, but for someone who recently blocked a nuisance caller, it’s a huge red flag.
With those caveats out of the way, here’s how to call someone who blocked you on their iPhone.
You need to hide your caller ID, which will prevent the receiving iPhone from knowing which number is calling.
- Open the Settings app.
- Scroll down and select Phone.
- Select “Show my caller ID.” Slide it to the off position.
You can now call the blocking iPhone and it will ring normally, because it doesn’t know you are the person it blocked. Whether the owner will respond to such a suspicious call is debatable.
Other possible ways to call someone who has blocked your number
There may be other ways to hide where you are calling from. Here are some suggestions, even if they are not all quick and easy:
- You can prevent your caller ID from being revealed by using the code for your country. For example, *67 in the US or 141 from a landline in the UK.
- Use a different phone number with a second SIM card: Many modern iPhones have dual SIM (or eSIM) capability. You may need to set up a new number with your cell phone provider first. Check out our guide to setting up two eSIMs on iPhone.
- Use a virtual number through a service like Google Voice or Zoom.
Setting up a completely new phone number, whether on a second SIM or eSIM card or with a virtual phone provider, takes a lot of effort, just to maybe reach someone who might not even answer a call coming from a number it doesn’t recognize, so consider this a last ditch effort.
Is it possible to block someone so they can’t call?
This article is written from the perspective of someone who has been stranded but needs to contact us in an emergency. But the rest of us will probably be horrified by how easy it is to bypass a call block. Is it possible to set up call blocking that actually works?
Yes it is. On the one hand, just understanding the method described in this article gives you a better chance of defeating it: if you have blocked someone unpleasant and then start receiving calls with the ID hidden or from from an unknown number, do not answer.
But it is possible to do better than that. We’ve updated our article “How to Block Numbers on Your iPhone” to include a section specifically addressing the method described in this article: Strategies for Blocking or Ignoring Callers Who Hide Their Caller ID, Including third-party applications and subscription services. Read How to Block People Who Hide Their Caller ID for more information.
Do they use Do Not Disturb mode?
There’s another possibility that we haven’t covered so far in this article: the contact who isn’t answering your calls or texts may be using Do Not Disturb rather than blocking you individually. Do not disturb is a bit like a temporary way to block everyone out.
The symptoms of Do Not Disturb are similar in many ways to those of a block, but the workarounds if you need to contact us in an emergency are slightly different. Calling at different times of the day, for example, and calling twice in a tight space can both pass a DND barrier, but would never be useful in circumventing a call block.
For more information on how to tell if your friend is using Do Not Disturb and how to call them anyway, read How to Tell if Someone is Using Do Not Disturb.
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