Do You Keep Missing Messages and Calls? Here’s How to Fix It

Your iPhone is your window to the world. It’s how you keep connected with friends and family throughout the day, which is why it can be so frustrating if you keep missing messages and calls on it. Maybe you’ve already checked your phone isn’t on silent, you’ve turned off Do Not Disturb mode, and you’ve mashed the volume buttons to turn the ringtone up. But you still don’t hear those notifications dinging through! This post will show you how to fix it. 

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Turn On Individual Message Alerts

Do you keep missing messages from one particular person? It could be because Alerts for that person have been switched off. It’s easy to do by mistake. Fortunately, the good news is that it’s just as easy to fix!

Show Alerts in Messages

1. Open Messages
2. Swipe left on the relevant conversation
3. Tap Show Alerts

You can also reverse this tip as a handy way to mute spammers that keep texting you!

Set Your Message Alerts to Repeat

If you spend a lot of time away from your phone, it could be that you’re always out of the room when your phone goes off. When that happens you might go hours before seeing a message on your device. The solution is to turn on Repeat Alerts in your notification settings. That means that your messages will keep going off every few minutes until you read them. It’s like a snooze button for your texts!

Turn On Repeat Alerts

1. Go to Settings > Notifications > Messages
2. Select Repeat Alerts
3. Choose a frequency for the alerts

Make Messages Visible from Your Lock Screen

If you didn’t hear your ringtone, you can usually rely on seeing the missed notification on your lock screen. But what about when your lock screen is blank but you open your iPhone to discover stacks of missed messages? Perhaps Recent Notifications are switched off on your lock screen!

Turn on Recent Notifications

1. Go to Settings > Touch ID & Passcode
2. Scroll down to Allow Access When Locked
3. Turn on Recent Notifications

Customize Your Ringtone for Noisy Environments

Are people getting frustrated that you keep missing their calls? Try changing your ringtone to a shrill sound that will cut through the noisiest environment. You can even customize the ringtone for each of your contacts, that way you know who is calling without needing to look at your phone.

Customize Contact Ringtones

1. Go to Phone > Contacts
2. Tap on the relevant contact
3. Edit > Ringtone > Select a unique Ringtone > Done
4. Edit > Text Tone > Select a unique Text Tone > Done

Bluetooth May Be Causing Problems

Some iOS 11 users have experienced problems with their notifications caused by the Bluetooth settings. It seems the iPhone tries to send its sound to a Bluetooth device that isn’t turned on—or might not even exist! Luckily, this is the easiest fix of the bunch. Simply open the control panel or Settings app and switch your Bluetooth off and on.

Check Your Vibrate and Ringer Volume Settings

The solution to your missing messages and calls could be as simple as turning your ringtone up. It’s possible that the buttons on your iPhone have been set to adjust video volume but not ringtone volume. If vibrate is switched off as well then it’s easy to see why you might have missed some phone calls.

Adjust Your Vibrate and Ringer Settings

1. Go to Settings > Sounds
2. Turn on Vibrate on Ring
3. Slide the Ringer Volume to the maximum
4. Turn on Change with Buttons to affect the ringtone with your buttons

We hope these tips have helped you to catch more messages and calls on your iPhone. There’s no excuse for falling out of touch with friends and family now. Let us know your own tricks for ensuring you always hear your phone notifications!

Dan Helyer( Senior Writer )

Dan is a freelance writer based in South West England.

He spent two years supervising repairs as a Genius Admin for Apple Retail and uses that knowledge to keep our troubleshooting guides up to date.

Long before that, Dan turned to Apple products from a musical background. Having owned iPods for years, he bought a MacBook to learn sound recording and production. It was using those skills that he gained a first-class Bachelor of Science in Sound Technology.