Staying connected is more crucial than ever. Our devices buzz, beep, and flash, keeping us updated with the latest messages, notifications, and reminders. But what happens when your trusty iPhone goes silent, leaving you in the dark about incoming texts or notifications? It can be both puzzling and frustrating.
In this article, we will delve into the possible reasons behind the absence of text or message notification alerts and sounds on your iPhone and provide comprehensive solutions to get you reconnected swiftly.
The very first thing that we recommend doing if you are having issues with receiving text or message notification alerts or sounds on iPhone is to restart your device. This is the most basic troubleshooting steps out there, and in a lot of cases, will actually fix any problems that are plaguing your device.
Press and hold the Side Button with either the Volume Up or Volume Down buttons at the same time.
Once the Slide to Power Off slider appears, slide the toggle to turn off your iPhone.
After your iPhone has completely powered off, press and hold the Side button until you see the Apple logo appear.
Sometimes a forced restart might be a bit more helpful when it comes to fixing problems with our various devices. Here’s how you can force restart your iPhone if you need to or want to try something different.
Press the Volume Up button and release.
Press the Volume Down button and release.
Press and hold the Side button for 10-15 seconds until your iPhone reboots.
If your iPhone doesn’t reboot after following the above steps, you may need to press the buttons more quickly in sequence. Timing is crucial to ensure the iPhone understands the action you’re attempting to perform.
A forced restart is a fundamental reboot of your device at the hardware level. It instantly breaks all ongoing processes by cutting off power, effectively refreshing the RAM. This often helps in rectifying small glitches. Rest assured, this won’t result in any data loss; all your applications, games, photos, documents, and login preferences stay untouched!
Once you’ve executed a forced restart, it’s prudent to review your Notification Settings. On occasion, a forceful reboot might revert certain settings to their original state. Thus, it’s wise to thoroughly inspect, possibly more than once, to ensure everything is in order!
Is There an Update Waiting To Be Installed?
Keeping your iPhone up-to-date is crucial not only for accessing the latest features but also for ensuring that you have the most recent security patches to protect your device and data. Apple frequently releases software updates to its iOS, bringing in new functionalities, bug fixes, and improvements.
Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Tap General.
Tap Software Update.
Wait a few moments.
If an update is available, tap the Download and Install button that appears.
If you don’t see an update but want to check again manually, just pull down to refresh the page.
Before updating, it’s a good practice to back up your device either to iCloud or your computer using iTunes. This ensures that your data remains safe in the event of an unexpected issue during the update process.
In the event that you do have an update available, it’s also important to make sure that your iPhone has plenty of battery life, or is connected to a charger. Additionally, you’ll likely want to connect your iPhone to Wi-Fi in order to ensure that there won’t be any interruptions, along with being able to enjoy faster download speeds.
Toggle Your Network
Something else that some users have found to be helpful is to turn off both the Wi-Fi and Cellular networks. For one reason or another, your iPhone might be getting “caught up” switching between these connections, with your incoming messages or phone calls hanging in the balance.
Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Tap Wi-Fi.
At the top of the page, tap the toggle next to Wi-Fi to the Off position.
Tap the < Settings button in the top left corner.
From the main Settings app, tap Cellular.
At the top of the page, tap the toggle next to Cellular Data to the Off position.
Follow the steps in the previous section to restart your iPhone.
Go back through and re-enable both Wi-Fi and Cellular on your iPhone.
Make Sure Messages Lock Screen Notifications Are Turned On
One of the most common reasons users miss out on text notifications is due to lock screen notification settings being toggled off. The iPhone allows you to customize which notifications appear on your lock screen for added privacy and minimal distractions. If you’re not seeing message alerts on your lock screen, it might be inadvertently disabled.
Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Swipe down and tap Face ID & Passcode.
Enter your iPhone’s passcode.
Swipe down until you reach the Allow Access When Locked section.
Make sure that Notification Center is enabled.
While here, enable any other features that you want to have available even if your iPhone is locked.
Are Messages Being Delivered Quietly?
A subtle but impactful feature in the iOS notification system is the “Deliver Quietly” option. When this setting is enabled for a particular app, in this case, Messages, notifications will bypass the lock screen, producing no sound, and not displaying any banner alerts. Instead, they quietly populate the Notification Center, which can easily lead to missed messages if you’re not routinely checking.
Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Tap Notifications.
Swipe down and tap Messages.
Under the Alerts section, make sure the following options are enabled:
Lock Screen
Notification Center
Banners
Tap Banner Style.
Select Persistent.
Tap Sounds.
Make sure that you have a tone selected from the list of options. Anything other than None will suffice.
Tap the toggle next to Badges to the On position.
How-To Fix Not Receiving Sound With Incoming Text Messages
Check Your iPhone Text Message Sound Effect and select a Text Tone
A distinguishing feature that notifies you of an incoming message on your iPhone is the sound effect or text tone. Sometimes, the chosen tone might be too subtle, or perhaps there’s no tone selected at all, leading you to miss those important messages.
Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Tap Sounds & Haptics.
Scroll down and tap Text Tone.
Tap Haptics at the top of the page.
Make sure anything other than None is selected.
Tap < Text Tone in the top left corner to return to the previous page.
At the bottom of the page, make sure that anything other than None is selected.
Remember, if your phone is in silent mode (with the side switch set to silent), the text tones won’t play regardless of the settings. Ensure that your phone isn’t on silent when you expect incoming messages.
Check Alerts for Individual Contacts
Customizing alerts for specific contacts is a handy feature on iPhones that allows users to differentiate between messages from various senders or to mute certain contacts temporarily. However, if you’ve unintentionally modified alerts for a particular contact, you might not receive their message notifications as expected.
Open the Contacts app on your iPhone.
Locate and select the contact that you are having problems with receiving notifications for.
Tap the Edit button in the top right corner.
Scroll down and tap Text Tone.
Make sure that anything other than None is selected.
Turn Off Unknown Senders Filter in Messages
Unfortunately, robocalls are not the only problem anymore, as the number of spam text messages is also growing at a rapid pace. While you can block numbers altogether, Apple has another feature that allows you to filter your Messages app to help separate the recognized senders from the potential spam.
There’s a chance that a new contact managed to make its way through the filtering system, resulting in you not receiving any notifications or messages. Here’s how you can turn the filter off:
Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Scroll down and tap Messages.
Scroll down until you reach the Message Filtering section.
Tap the toggle next to Filter Unknown Senders to the Off position.
Did You Block The Contact By Accident?
Sometimes, amidst managing our growing contact lists and handling spam, we might inadvertently block a legitimate contact. When a contact is blocked on the iPhone, their messages won’t trigger notifications, and their texts are sent directly to a separate folder, making it seem as if they never messaged in the first place.
Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Scroll down and tap Messages.
Swipe down again until you reach the SMS/MMS section.
Tap Blocked Contacts.
Go through the list and see if the contact you are having problems with is listed.
If so, tap the Edit button in the top right corner.
Tap the Delete button to the left of the contact that you want removed from the Blocked Contacts list.
Repeat if you find other contacts that have also been blocked.
After you are finished, tap the Done button in the top right corner.
Check Your Notification Settings
The central hub for managing how your iPhone alerts you to various activities is the Notification Settings. Sometimes, inadvertent changes here can lead to silenced or missed notifications.
Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Tap Notifications.
Swipe down and tap Messages.
Make sure that the following options are enabled or selected:
Allow Notifications
Always Deliver Immediately
Critical Alerts
Time Sensitive Notifications
Alerts
Lock Screen
Notification Center
Banners
Banner Style
Persistent
After making any necessary adjustments, tap the < Notifications button in the top left corner to save your changes.
Do Not Disturb (DND) or Focus Modes Might Be Enabled
The central hub for managing how your iPhone alerts you to various activities is the Notification Settings. Sometimes, inadvertent changes here can lead to silenced or missed notifications.
Unlock your iPhone.
Swipe down from the top right corner to reveal the Control Center.
Locate the Focus or Do Not Disturb button.
Make sure that it is not highlighted.
If so, tap the button to turn it off.
Contact Specific Do Not Disturb Notifications
With older versions of iOS, you could actually set Do Not Disturb for specific contacts. You can see if this is something that is enabled by opening the Messages app and seeing a “Crescent Moon” icon next to the contact. Here’s how you can turn off Do Not Disturb for specific contacts:
Open the Messages app.
Locate the contact that you are experiencing issues with receiving notifications from.
Select the message thread.
Tap either the Details or Information button.
Turn off Do Not Disturb for this specific contact.
Did You Enable Hide Alerts?
We’ve all had moments when we wanted a break from incessant message notifications or desired some digital quietness from a specific conversation. Apple’s “Hide Alerts” feature in the Messages app caters to this need, allowing users to mute individual chats without blocking the contact. However, it’s easy to forget that this feature is activated, leading to puzzling instances where messages seem to appear out of the blue without any prior notification.
Open the Messages app.
Locate the contact that you are experiencing issues with receiving notifications from.
Select the message thread.
Tap the Contact Name at the top of the screen.
Scroll down and tap the toggle next to Hide Alerts to the Off position.
Make Sure You Can Receive Notifications on Your iPhone and Apple Watch
The harmony between your iPhone and Apple Watch ensures a seamless experience, especially when it comes to notifications. With the convenience of having notifications delivered to your wrist, it’s important to ensure that both devices are set up correctly to receive them. Misconfigurations can sometimes lead to missed alerts on one or both devices.
Open the Watch app on your iPhone.
Tap Notifications.
Scroll down and tap Messages.
Make sure that Mirror my iPhone is selected.
If you are trying to troubleshoot the problem, then tap Custom.
Tap Notifications Off.
Are Messages and iMessage Enabled on Your Mac?
As Apple ecosystems expand, the seamless integration between devices becomes more prevalent. This interconnectedness means that your Mac can also be a hub for receiving and sending text messages and iMessages, just like your iPhone. However, if you’re noticing inconsistencies or delays in getting your messages on your Mac, or perhaps you’re new to the Apple universe and aren’t sure how to set it up, it’s essential to verify the configuration.
Open the Messages app on your Mac.
Click Messages in the top left corner of the Menu Bar.
From the drop-down menu that appears, highlight and select Settings…
Click iMessage at the top of the window that appears.
Make sure that Enable Messages in iCloud is enabled.
Make Sure You’re Getting Notified in Group Messages
Group messages are a fantastic way to communicate with multiple contacts simultaneously, be it for family updates, work collaborations, or planning events with friends. However, due to the volume of messages these chats can generate, some users modify or mute notifications to minimize distractions. Yet, this can also mean missing out on essential updates. In this section, we will delve into the nuances of group message notifications and ensure that you’re set up to receive alerts for those vital group communications, so you never feel out of the loop.
Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Swipe down and tap Messages.
Swipe down again until you reach the Mentions section.
Tap the toggle next to Notify Me to the On position.
Tap the < Settings button in the top left corner to save your changes.
Disconnect Bluetooth Devices
Our devices are more interconnected than ever, thanks to Bluetooth technology. It allows seamless pairing of headphones, speakers, and other peripherals to our iPhones. However, there are instances when this convenience can unintentionally interfere with our notification experience. If you’ve ever missed an alert or wondered why your phone seemed silent, a connected Bluetooth device might be the culprit.
Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Tap Bluetooth.
Locate any devices that are connected under the My Devices section.
Tap the Info button to the right of the device name.
Swipe all the way down to the bottom of the page.
Tap the Disconnect button.
Repeat these steps for any other devices that might be connected to your iPhone.
Turn off Text Message Forwarding
The Text Message Forwarding feature on the iPhone allows users to send and receive SMS and MMS from any Apple device linked to the same iCloud account. While this can be an invaluable tool for seamless communication across multiple devices, it might also be a reason for unexpected behavior in your message notifications.
Perhaps you’ve noticed messages appearing on your iPad or Mac, but mysteriously bypassing your iPhone. Let’s dive into how to manage this feature and ensure that your messages are being directed as you intend.
Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Swipe down and tap Messages.
Scroll down again and tap Text Message Forwarding.
Tap the toggle next to any devices that are enabled to the Off position.
Update Your DNS Servers
In the vast digital ecosystem of the internet, DNS (Domain Name System) servers function as the address books, translating human-friendly website names into IP addresses that machines understand. Just as you’d occasionally update your phone’s contact list to ensure smooth communication, updating your DNS servers can lead to faster browsing speeds, heightened security, and a more reliable internet experience.
This section will guide you through the steps and reasons for updating your DNS servers, ensuring optimal connectivity and online performance. Whether you’re seeking faster website load times or heightened security measures, adjusting your DNS settings might just be the solution. Let’s dive in.
Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Tap Wi-Fi.
Tap the Info button to the right of the Wi-Fi network that you are connected to.
Swipe down until you reach the DNS section.
Tap Configure DNS.
Tap Manual.
Under the DNS Servers section, tap the + Add Server button.
Enter 8.8.8.8
Tap the + Add Server button again.
Enter 8.8.4.4.
Tap the Save button in the top right corner.
Reset Your Network Settings
Troubleshooting network problems can be one of the biggest frustrations out there. And while the iPhone and iPad are pretty good about keeping things on track, something can easily get messed up from time to time.
Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
Tap General.
Scroll to the bottom and tap Transfer or Reset iPhone (iPad).
Tap the Reset button at the bottom of the page.
Tap Reset Network Settings.
When prompted, enter your iPhone’s passcode.
By resetting the Network Settings, all of your saved Wi-Fi networks and VPN connections will be completely removed. But this also resets that cellular connection on your device, which may help to improve the overall network connectivity of your iPhone and iPad.
Reset All Settings Without Erasing Your iPhone
This first method essentially resets all of the preferences that you might have tweaked over the duration of owning your iPhone or iPad. This literally means that if you’ve tapped a toggle to turn something on, performing this reset will put things back to the way that they were when you first took the iPhone or iPad out of the box.
Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
Tap General.
Scroll to the bottom and tap Transfer or Reset iPhone (iPad).
Tap the Reset button at the bottom of the page.
Tap Reset All Settings.
When prompted, enter your passcode.
Conclusion
While the convenience and reliability of our iPhones make communication seamless, encountering issues with notifications can disrupt our day-to-day activities. Whether it’s a simple settings tweak, a software update, or more in-depth troubleshooting, there are solutions available to restore your iPhone’s alert capabilities.
We hope that the steps outlined in this article have been beneficial in addressing the silent treatment from your device. Remember, technology is bound to have its hiccups, but with the right guidance, you can navigate and resolve challenges with ease.
Andrew Myrick is a freelance writer based on the East Coast of the US. He enjoys everything to do with technology, including tablets, smartphones, and everything in between. Perhaps his favorite past-time is having a never-ending supply of different keyboards and gaming handhelds that end up collecting more dust than the consoles that are being emulated.
Thanks for your lucid and detailed explanation. I had lost sound on incoming test messages and consequently was late for tea and when I did arrive the tea was cold and I was in the doghouse.
I took your advice and eventually found reset was what was needed.
No more cold tea, (or coffee) very many thanks.
Tim BB
Have struggled with this for a while. Narrowed it down to having bluetooth on. I understand if you have a bluetooth device connected, you may want your notifications to go to that device. e.g. Apple watch, headphones etc. Problem is that when I notice I miss a text because I didn’t hear any sound, I immediately check my BT to see if it is on and if anything is connected. Each time I miss a text sound, my BT is on, but there is nothing connected. I believe it has something to do with a device that was previously connected and I’ve moved out of range. It doesn’t cut the connection completely.
If I turn Bluetooth off, texts come in as they should. I wish there was a setting where you could select “Phone and BT Device” for alerts.
When my iPhone 8 is connected to Bluetooth when in my vehicle – it renders navigation voice & message alert ringer both silent – there’s nothing wrong with thee iPhone 8 – as soon as you disable Bluetooth both the navigation voice & message alert ringer work.Problem is when you disable Bluetooth you lose your hands free calling ability & that’s frowned upon,so I do not do that & if I disable Bluetooth it unpairs my iPhone from the system – So the question is – why does Bluetooth eliminate navigation voice & message alerts ? And it’s not only iPhones -same with Samsung’s. Andrew E.
I had this same problem for a very long time and tried everything to fix. What I finally realized was it was due to my Apple Watch settings. I had my watch set to do not disturb and also chosen “mirror my phone”. I turned these off on the watch and problem solved.
no help to me. Since I upgraded to latest version of Ios 14.4.2 , I have the problem with no notifications for text messages when iphone is locked. This is on iphone 11. nothing seems to work. I believe it has something to do with the Do Not Disturb option. It is turned off but under Silence, the While Iphone is locked is checked. no way to uncheck this.
I finally figured out what worked for me on my iphone 12 Pro to fix the issue of not getting notifications. At some point I turned off notifications for texts, which I think it was a of a middle of the night notification issue keeping me up or waking me up at night & I just meant to make it temporary, but that wasn’t what happened. I turned notifications back on, but I noticed I was no longer getting notified long after I turned it back on & I noticed a crescent moon was beside each person’s text from everyone who sent a message & even holding my finger on the message and turning off the Do Not Disturb still wasn’t letting my messages alert me. FINALLY, today I figured out that because I didn’t delete each person’s messages (Yes I’m a message hoarder!!) and it was keeping the Do Not Disturb from turning off. So if your a message hoarder…say Goodbye to all those old messages & you will get your ding back!
We fixed this on an iPhone 11 and an iPhone 12. Go to Settings then Notifications. Open Messages and switch on to Allow Notifications. We don’t know how/why both of our phones finally went silent but after is change they are finally fixed!!
Oh my gosh, game changer. I have tried so many things to get my text notifications to work. Now they do!! thanks so much.
Fresh query: when I got my apple watch (6) I didn’t say yes to the blood oxygen app. Now I can’t seem to find it anywhere… any suggestions greatly appreciated.
I had the phone ring but no alert sounds, no keyboard sounds, music would not play through the speaker.
I tried everything including reboots, hard reboot, resets, etc. Then I noticed that I could hear the alert sounds & music through the headphones, aha! must be a headphone issue! Using a wooden toothpick and a flashlight I was able to pick out a couple of good chunks of lint from the headphone jack. Voila! it works! Now I have to go back into my phone and set it all up again, oh well….
I have an iPhone XR and at least 3 times (most likely more) my phone has reset any kind of notification for text messages. I do get notified when an automated text comes in (that I haven’t already blocked), but not with messages from my contacts. Has anyone ever experienced this?
Thank you! I tried everything. Finally resetting to “default” for the sounds worked. I hadn’t been using any exotic sounds, just the ones that came with the phone, but “default” works now.
Great suggestions but none of them seem to address my problem. When my phone is near my MacBook Pro there is no audible notification on my phone when I receive a text message or iMessage. iMessage notifies on the MacBook but I get NO notification on either if it is a non iPhone text message. I don’t know there was a text message until I happen to pick up my phone.
I have an iPhone XR and at least 3 times (most likely more) my phone has reset any kind of notification for text messages. I do get notified when an automated text comes in (that I haven’t already blocked), but not with messages from my contacts. Has anyone ever experienced this?
If you have ever temporarily changed the date on your phone to some future date for testing that might have trigged the problem. If you receive a notification from a friend during the time you set the date forward then set the date back to normal, you will not get notifications for that friend until that test date is reached. i.e. If you set the date 3 months forward, receive a message, then set the date back, it will be 3 months before you get notifications again. I imagine that the Apple developers have some check in their code that makes sure to notify you only if a message comes is is NOT dated earlier than a pervious message you have been notified for. The only way to fix this is to either wait until that date or delete all message history from that person. You might be able to fix it also if you know the exact message that came in while you had your phone date set to the future and delete it. (I wasn’t able to try that)
As a software developer working on iPhone apps I often need to change my phone date for testing. When I stopped receiving messages from my girlfriend I tried everything to fix it except deleting our history. When I downloaded my iPhone message database to my laptop I saw the message that was out of date and recorded it on my calendar. When we got to that date my notifications started working again. Unfortunately the message in question was a “reaction” to one of my messages and I couldn’t figure out how to delete that like a normal message.
As I last resort I powered the phone off and then back on again and wouldn’t you know it, it’s fixed. Sometimes the good old ‘reboot’ is all you need !!
Hi. I had a iPhone 5s for 3years and i found out that keypad clicks stopped working and text alerts tones were lost. I found by messing about that by turning blue tooth off and on they returned. I have just bought an iPhone 7 and found that this problem still exists. After all this time why have apple not sorted this problem. It’s most annoying , after paying all this money.
You are correct. Notifications go to either your Apple Watch or iPhone, but not both.
When your iPhone is unlocked, you get notifications on your iPhone. If your iPhone is locked or asleep, notifications route to your Apple Watch (unless your Apple Watch is locked with your passcode)
You could try turning off Wrist Detection in your watch’s settings (on the watch or via iPhone’s Watch app, go to Passcode and toggle off wrist detection)
If Wrist Detection is off, you won’t get quick access to Apple Pay on your watch nor any Stand notifications or track your Stand progress. Background heart rate readings are also not registered if Wrist Detection is off.
Additionally, for Apple Watch Series 4 and later, the watch wonʼt automatically make an emergency call even after it has detected a hard impact fall.
I am having a problem with message sound, typing sound, Whats app sound, etc.
Suddenly, the sound for all these become very low or no sound at all.
This issue came from my Iphone six and now, it is in my Iphone XR!
I have tried to change sound, ring tones, etc.
the problem only stpos whenever I restart the phone.
But, starts again teo or 3 days after…
Give this a try: go to Settings > Notifications > Mail > Favorite Mailboxes and make sure the notifications are turned on and that you assign a sound there as well.
Repeat this process of allowing notifications and choosing a sound for VIP and Threaded Notifications (if desired)
My IPhone 6s has stopped notifying me when my daughter sends a text to me. It also stopped using the custom text sound I chose for her and her sister. Other senders still have notifications working. I tried turning my phone off and then back on. I checked in settings for any sounds being turned off. I shut off my Bluetooth and then turned it back on. I am very frustrated because that is our main way of communicating.
After my Iphone6s plus updated to ios 13.2, i didn’t receive any notification from my social account . (Facebook,messenger,line ) app. They did not appear on my banner. I checked my notification but it all turn on. I reset all my settings too. What should I do ?
Did you figure out how to fix your issue? I am having the same problem. I receive text/imessage notifications, but that is it. I have tried everything suggested, nothing has worked.
I have an XS Max and I am no longer receiving text notification sounds but only when a text is from another iPhone. I still get alerts from Android phones. This is very frustrating and annoying as I have missed several important messages. How can this be fixed?
Try signing out of iMessage, restart, and then sign back in.
Go to Settings > Messages > and toggle iMessage off.
Restart by powering off, waiting a few minutes, then powering back on
Go back to Settings > Messages and toggle on iMessage
Once back on, check your Notification settings (Settings > Notifications > Messages) and then run a few tests with friends or family.
If that doesn’t work, try resetting all your settings via Settings > General > reset > reset all settings.
* This is usually the last resort since it resets all your personalized features back to factory defaults
* Go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset All
* This resets to default everything in Settings, including notifications, alerts, brightness, and clock settings like wake up alarms
* Resetting all settings also reverts all your personalized and customized features like wallpapers and accessibility settings back to factory defaults.
* Performing this action does not impact any of your personal device data, including photos, texts, documents, and other files
* You need to reconfigure these settings once your iPhone or iDevice restarts
MISSING VOICE ALERT ON NEW MESSAGES.
.. When iPhone is connected to a CarPlay via Bluetooth, the msg notification only vibrate but no sound alert, even the vehicle radio volume is loud. This should be fixed in the next update.
in the latest ios, there is no sound when an email or text goes out. i have selected a sound and nothing. i selected another and still nothing. all my other alerts seem to work and I’m not in silent mode.
Check your notification settings for these apps. Go to Settings > Notifications. Then verify that allow notifications is toggled on, that you select where you want alerts (like lock screen, notification center, banners) and so forth.
Great blog thanks. This is not a new problem for me or my wife.
Both of use have IOS 13.1.2 – me on 11pro max, her on 8.
Both are not getting alert tones. We have checked all the settings and had changed NOTHING. This loss of message alerts is a recurrent (bad) theme with Apple for the last few years.
After 3 trips to the Apple store with no ring or vibrate with incoming calls, Apple replaced my phone. Still had the problem. The next trip Apple admitted it was a software problem and they are “working” on it.
My iPhone 8 Plus is running iOS 13. My repeat alerts is not working for my messages. I set it at 3 and it still only alert once. I’ve tried all the internet suggestions and instructions and still have the same problem.
Can anyone help? Thanks.
If so, temporarily unpair your watch from your iPhone and then run these steps and tests. When you unpair your Apple Watch from your iPhone, your iPhone automatically creates a backup of your Apple Watch. Unpairing erases all data from your Apple Watch–but when you re-pair you connect to your backup when you set the Apple Watch up from that backup.
If you don’t pair with a Watch, follow the steps and see if they help.
1) Force closing the Messages App by double-pressing the home button and swiping up off the Messages app to the top of the screen
2) Open Settings > Notifications > Messages and turn repeat alerts to Never
3) Restart
4) When the iPhone is back on, go back into Settings > Notifications > Messages and turn repeat alerts back on–set to 5 times
5) Ask someone to text you to test it out
If this works, re-pair your Apple Watch back to your iPhone.
Go to Settings, then Sound. Toggle “Change with Buttons” off.
Position volume slider to full volume. Adjust to normal volume.
Toggle “Change with Buttons” on
Immediately restart.
Starting about a week ago, I am no longer hearing notification sound on my iPhone for alarms, messages , texts, emails, etc.
Why is this happening?
How can I start getting notification sound?
Please help!
First, check that do not disturb is off–Settings > Do Not Disturb. Even if you use this for certain times or while driving, temporarily turn it all off and set your DND while driving to Manually. Then restart your device and see if you get notifications.
Also, check your side switch to ensure it’s not set to mute–the switch is near your volume buttons.
Then, take a look at how you set-up your notification settings–go to Settings > Notifications and review the settings for each app.
I went through and one by one, I checked & did EVERYTHING on this list and still – the sounds do not play when I have an incoming text message.
I guess I’ll have to make an appt at Apple store – my text notifications are more important to me than my phone calls because text messages are the main way my family gets in touch with me.
When I receive a text on 5s the phone vibrates but there’s no sound, I’ve gone to settings & still it won’t allow me to listen to any sounds just vibration patterns. Can anyone help?
It sounds like your side switch is set to mute all sounds.
It’s a physical button located just above your volume buttons.
Inspect the button–if you see a thin sliver of orange, then it’s set to mute your ringer. Flip the button in the opposite direction–so you no longer see any orange. That should do the trick!
One thing to check is if you use Messages in the Cloud. Go to Settings > Apple ID Profile > iCloud > and toggle on Messages. Do this for both the iPad and the iPhone.
Also, on both your iPhone and iPad check Settings > Notifications > Messages to make sure that you select all styles under the alerts section, including the lock screen, notification center, and banners. Change banner style to Persistent.
Then, under Show Previews select Always
Do you want your text messages only on your iPhone and NOT your iPad?
Try turning off, Text Message Forwarding on your iPhone. Go to Settings > Messages > and toggle off Text Message Forwarding.
Another thing to check is that under Settings > Messages > Send & Receive that both your phone number and email address are checked under You can receive iMessages to and reply from.
My issue was the sound was so low even the volume all the way up it could barely be heard with the phone next to my ear. After trying everything, the system reset worked.
You are not the first person to have this issue with CarPlay and iMessage!
Here are some things to try”
1. restart both your car and your iPhone
2. toggle AirPlane mode on and off via the Settings App not Control Center
3. Ask Siri to read those messages and see if that marks them for deletion on CarPlay
If these three tips don’t help, try forgetting your car Settings > General > CarPlay, and tap Forget This Car. Then add it back by going to Settings > General > CarPlay, tap Available cars, then select your car.
Thanks, Sam, for your prompt response. I did contact Apple with my problem. Thanks for providing their contact information. Now I’ll cross my fingers and hope a new iOS update will soon resolve everyone’s issues with this problem.
Maureen
This article was extremely well written. It was an enormous help in getting a solution to my iMessage and text alert to sound when the phone was locked.
I recently purchased an iPhone XS Max and installed the latest iOS updates. Never had any difficulties wth any of my previous iPhones, so I’m blaming the iOS version for my current problem.
I used your solution of turning off the Bluetooth and the alert sound works. As soon as I turn the Bluetooth back on, the alert sound for iMessages and texts doesn’t function.
Any suggestions on how to forward this information to Apple’s iOS developers? And any information on when the fix for this will be released?
A lot of readers using the latest iOS report this problem, especially on the new iPhone XS/XR models. There doesn’t appear to be one universal solutions; however, some folks tell us that resetting all settings did the trick for them. So if you haven’t tried this one, you might want to.
Always back up first with iCloud or iTunes before resetting all settings. Then go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings.
It is a bit of a drastic action. This resets to default everything in Settings, including notifications, alerts, brightness, and clock settings like wake up alarms.
Performing this action does not impact any of your personal device data, including photos, texts, documents, and other files.
Resetting all settings also reverts all your personalized and customized features like wallpapers and accessibility settings back to factory defaults.
So you need to reconfigure these settings once your iPhone or iDevice restarts.
Ok. Send a test message to the person your having trouble not receiving text notifications from. Tap on the persons or contacts icon in the top Middle, then tap on info on top right, look down on you will see a button to stop notifications from that contact. Turn the button off to begin receiving text notifications from that person once again. Your welcome.
Text message sound notifications are not working while the screen is locked on my iPhone 8 plus.
I’ve tried just about everything.
I also have another iPhone 8 plus for work and text-sound notification is working.
I verified that they both have the same options checked and still isn’t working on my personal phone… also not getting a sound notification on apple watch 3 or thru AirPods.
Sorry to hear about your problems with your iPhone 8 Plus and notifications not sounding off.
Here are some additional tips, which you may or may not have already tried. Sorry for the randomness of these suggestions–unfortunately, there is no ONE reason for this problem so we are covering the bases and providing you additional reader tips.
Try unpairing your Apple Watch (temporarily) and then restart your iPhone. See if you hear notifications when you are not paired with your watch.
Other options are to completely turn off DND–Do Not Disturb (Settings > DND > Off.) Also, make sure Scheduled and Bedtime are off as well. And set DND While Driving to Manually
Make sure your Message App notifications are set to Always under Show Previews
Check that Settings > Notifications > Messages has Allow toggled on, checkmark all alert styles, change the banner style to persistent, Change your Sounds setting to something new and make sure you add a vibration as well. Set Repeat Alerts to something other than Never.
Turn off Bluetooth–see if that makes a difference (Settings > Bluetooth > Off)
Reset your network’s settings. Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings
Some readers found that deleting all current text message threads worked–it’s a bit drastic. But they did find that after deleting all their current messages and then restarting that notifications work again!
Another option some folks found useful was completely signing out of iMessage (Settings > Messages > iMessage), restarting, and then signing back–it’s best to use the same Apple ID as your device (the Apple ID listed for iCloud and iTunes & App Stores).
At the top left of the iPhone (above) where you can turn the sound up and down is a small port inside is a slide, not knowing I had turned it off, my daughter pushed it forward and all sounds came back, I tried all the things suggested here.
The issue on my phone was that I had ‘Hide alerts’ turned ON for a particular person. To find this I had to open the Message from them and @ the top click their Name>Info and turn OFF the Hide Alerts…voila!
I don’t know why all these things worked, but they did. I started by restarting the iphone, then went through about a third of this list toggling things on and off again and now I have alert sounds back! None of my settings were off, the side switch was not on mute, I didn’t have the volume turned too far down, Do Not Disturb was not on, all my notification settings were set up correctly…..so I didn’t really change anything, but now things work that didn’t before???
I really hope Apple figures this out; I need to be able to trust my phone to remind me of things!
Really, Apple needs to do more than fix this,”BUG”. “BUG” can be swatted, or sprayed with insecticide, but this is a system error, a persistent system error that started for me and my wife with the introduction of IOS 11 and iPhone 8. Lucky we still have landline phones, otherwise we’d be up the creek without a paddle(s). We do all messaging when we travel, and we travel alot. We stay in touch with family the same way….we’ve done “ALL” the things possible, as-well-as contacting Apple Support, not much help there. I knew more than they did, working as a tech specialist for close to 35 years, go figure.
Hello: I’ve done all that has been suggested and still, the imessage notifications are not appearing; the “red” number. This is on my IPod Touch. It’s been happening for about 2 months now. The only fix has been to “restore” the phone to a previous back-up which seems over the top, every time this happens. Advice?
I have tried everything to correct my iPhone 6. But when I am in my car even as a passenger, I don’t get sound when I get a text message. I get a screen notification but no sound. I have to turn Bluetooth off to get sound. DNDWD is turned off. Nothing else has worked. This is annoying. Apple needs to fix this.
iPhone allows Text Tone notification to be set for individual contacts. This allows you to know (by the tone or vibration sequence) who’s texting without even looking at your phone.
Check the individual contact and see what’s listed under “Text Tone”. Even though standard notifications may be set to one parameter, I had, for some reason, turned off sound notifications through a contact. You can make adjustments in the contact itself.
Wow, thanks for sharing this awesome tip! We’ll add it to the article, it’s sure to help others. Again, we really appreciate your insight and sharing with us what worked for you.
So many different ways it can be broken! The one that was vexing me seems so obvious now, but I simply could not find it without your help. Reading your article I learned at least one other setting that I will use. Thanks and thanks again.
This also annoyed me for days, to find out the case I was using pushed the “do not disturb”/ silence button (over volume buttons to the left)
Causing no text message alerts, no call ringing No texting key pad sounds… I
Checked every setting over & over, I was on verge of tossing phone.. never knew about the side silence button since prior phone was an Samsung. Hope this helps others, yes I have watch that sounded but phone itself would not.
” Look for a setting called SILENCE under Do Not Disturb. You see two options: Always and While iPhone is locked. Switch it to the unchecked setting (for me While iPhone is locked was checked, so I changed it to Always.) Once I switched that setting, my audio notifications returned for both messages and emails! It doesn’t make sense, but it worked, go figure! ”
The text says nothing about not getting a notification sound on the phone when having a bluetooth headset connected. iPhone’s seems to be the only smartphone with this “feature”. I have a Beats X WITH the “amazing” W1 chip by the way.
Thank you! This was driving me batty! I was using the doorbell chime under classic tones. It looks like it doesn’t like that it all any more. First, I changed default as suggested. When that worked, I changed to another tone that I prefer. It seems to be working now.
Great checklist! After checking my sound and notification settings I couldn’t figure this out. Found that DND was misconfigured (silent when locked). Thanks!
I was deleteing a message, but beside the “delete” message is a “ show alerts or hide alerts”. I accidently had changed this to “hide alerts”. By tapping on it you can change setting. I didn’t see any “moon” as mentioned in other comments in “hide alerts” but this may solve someone’s problem.
Thank you for sharing what worked for you! We’ll add it to our reader tips section. And yes, that crescent moon seems to have a mind of its own, showing up on some devices and not on others!
I get this intermittently, where my phone will sometimes make a sound and sometimes not for the same contact. I mess with a bunch of stuff (thanks for adding to my list of stuff to mess with) and it works. Or maybe it would have sounded next time anyway since it’s an intermittent issue.
But the thing is that if Apple is going to charge $800 to $1149 for a phone, and crow about how much profit they are making, how about they make the thing consistently tell me when I have a message from work.
Maybe they could take someone off the team that is focused on perfecting the talking animated poo.
This was driving me absolutely nuts. I ran through the whole list and checked everything, including shutting my Apple Watch completely off.
It turns out that for some reason, having my Messages app on my Mac enabled with my iCloud account, it was blocking the notifications from going to my phone. If you’ve run through this whole list and it’s still not working, go to Messages on your Mac, File->Preferences and disable the account.
Thanks for sharing the tip that worked for you! There’s a lot of things that cause problems so it’s hard to isolate just one. We’ll add yours into the list.
I got it working.
I don’t know what did the trick but I deleted that persons contact added it again and then deleted the conversation and now I’m recieving notifications
Exactly the same issue for only one contact. Very frustrating- haven’t reset but everything else tried my many of iPhone users to no avail. I think it only happened after a recent update-everything was fine until then.
This problem plagued me for months! Turned out I had somehow enabled DND (Hide Alerts) for my wife! I don’t recall doing this but whatever. It seems to have happened when I updated to iOS 11 a few weeks ago. Anyway, she was getting really upset with me not answering her texts (which I never saw.) So together we figured it out after reading this article. Thanks for the tip! Saved my butt with my wife.
I am having his issue with only one contact. I won’t know I have a message until I click in my messages and it looks as if it has already been read. No sound nor message indication somhleing i have one unread text. I don’t want to delete the whole text thread. None of these steps helped me.
Are you sure you do not have DND on for this particular contact? Check that contact in the Message app using the “I” in the upper right and look for the a Do Not Disturb or Alerts toggle–if it’s enabled, disable it.
When one contact has this issue, it’s almost always DND or Hide Alerts was somehow enabled.
Not sure if this was mentioned or not, but if you want to get notifications on both your iPhone and your Apple Watch, just turn off wrist detection on the Watch.
Sure, this disables some abilities, like Apple Pay and wrist detection, amongst others, but it does allow you to get a notification on both devices.
I finally got mine to work again. I followed everything in the post save a soft or hard system reset. Then I tried a forced restart. This still didn’t fix the problem.
After I forced restart I checked my notifications in the message app again. (for like the 15th time) and low and behold now the notifications were turned completely off. I turned them back on and now it works again. Trust me I checked the app notifications in message plenty of times and even tried cycling them several times. I have an older 5s so this might not help anyone else. I never had this problem until update 11.
Just happy to have my piiiiiiiing back.(I never thought I would miss that annoying sound)
BTW great article I would have never got it working again without it. Very clear and all encompassing.
Awesome Shawn!
And hey you are not alone with the 5S (we have one that we love) AND not alone in this problem. Yup, it happened to us too–a lot of patience required and always checking and rechecking the settings to make sure that iOS hasn’t reset them to something else.
I just updated to IOS 11.1 and changed my banner to persistent. On the sleep and lock screen texts are still not showing up. I have to unlock my phone and go to messages before I know if there is a text. I checked all my settings and they are correct based on every article I’ve read and apple support. Please advise in what to do now. Thank you.
Sorry to hear that! Totally stinks. Have you check that in Settings > Notifications > Show Previews is set to Always? Also, folks report that toggling off Show in History helps, Settings > Notifications > Messages > Toggle Show in History off.
And, if you have a lot of notifications iOS 11 put them into a sort of waiting room, that is accessed from the lock screen by swiping from the middle of your screen to the top of the screen.
If you’re still not seeing anything, it might be some setting getting in the way. So rather than go through each and every settings, try a Reset All Settings (Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings.) This does not erase any data or documents (photos, videos, books, and so forth) but it does remove any special settings, like WiFi passwords, accessibility settings, and other setting customizations.
My text messages will appear in lock mode for a little bit; but after about a half hour or so they disappear.
I’m not with my phone 24/7 and while I’m at work I sometimes only have time to read what’s on the locked screen and reply as needed.
How do I get these to come back until I unlock my phone like I used to do. I have IOS 11.0.3 version.
Let’s update your Messages Notification settings. Go to Settings > Notifications > Messages and underneath Alerts change the device setting from temporary (the default) to Persistent. Just tap on the screen icon above the work persistent–it should get circled.
No they do not fix the problem. I have updated to the latest 11.0.3. And still have issue. Date and time “automatic” fixes the problem. I don’t want date and time on automatic, I like my phone fast. As soon as I put it back to what time I want it changes the order I receive messages again. The responding messages are coming in above my messages, therefore not making sound.
In the new ios11 I have stopped receiving message notifications because I have my phone running fast. I get the first notification but not for responses because apparently they were delivered in the past. This is not an issue I want fixed by running my phone at the correct time. I Like it to be fast. It was a non issue in all previous iOS versions
Please go to Settings > Notifications and toggle everything ON. Change Repeat Alerts to Once. And update your Banners from Temporary to Persistent. Just tap on the Persistent Banner picture. The go to Settings > General > Date & Time and toggle ON Set Automatically. If it’s already ON, toggle it Off and set it manually to your current location and time zone.
Once all these settings are changed, perform a restart by pressing power and swiping off. Then power up again.
I had recently started using the iMessage app on OSX again. For some reason it had turned off the notifications in the iMessage’s app on OSX was turned off some how. An incoming message is first directed to you OSX, assuming you are logged into iMessages, if you are not, the second route the message will take is to your Apple watch, unless your phone is unlocked – in which case the message will be delivered to the latter. Order of operations apparently.
this is very out of date often none of your options are available to me and I still don’t get audible alerts from any thing
Thanks for your lucid and detailed explanation. I had lost sound on incoming test messages and consequently was late for tea and when I did arrive the tea was cold and I was in the doghouse.
I took your advice and eventually found reset was what was needed.
No more cold tea, (or coffee) very many thanks.
Tim BB
I am not getting any public safety alerts on my iPhone. And there are no visible options under Notifications to get Government Alerts.
Have struggled with this for a while. Narrowed it down to having bluetooth on. I understand if you have a bluetooth device connected, you may want your notifications to go to that device. e.g. Apple watch, headphones etc. Problem is that when I notice I miss a text because I didn’t hear any sound, I immediately check my BT to see if it is on and if anything is connected. Each time I miss a text sound, my BT is on, but there is nothing connected. I believe it has something to do with a device that was previously connected and I’ve moved out of range. It doesn’t cut the connection completely.
If I turn Bluetooth off, texts come in as they should. I wish there was a setting where you could select “Phone and BT Device” for alerts.
When my iPhone 8 is connected to Bluetooth when in my vehicle – it renders navigation voice & message alert ringer both silent – there’s nothing wrong with thee iPhone 8 – as soon as you disable Bluetooth both the navigation voice & message alert ringer work.Problem is when you disable Bluetooth you lose your hands free calling ability & that’s frowned upon,so I do not do that & if I disable Bluetooth it unpairs my iPhone from the system – So the question is – why does Bluetooth eliminate navigation voice & message alerts ? And it’s not only iPhones -same with Samsung’s. Andrew E.
If you have an Apple watch, turn off Wrist Detection in the Passcode menu of the Apple watch settings menu. This will fix the problem.
I had this same problem for a very long time and tried everything to fix. What I finally realized was it was due to my Apple Watch settings. I had my watch set to do not disturb and also chosen “mirror my phone”. I turned these off on the watch and problem solved.
Thanks for all the information! I completely forgot about the Bluetooth headset! Issue solved!
I am thankful for the time and hard work you put in to assemble this information and share with us.
no help to me. Since I upgraded to latest version of Ios 14.4.2 , I have the problem with no notifications for text messages when iphone is locked. This is on iphone 11. nothing seems to work. I believe it has something to do with the Do Not Disturb option. It is turned off but under Silence, the While Iphone is locked is checked. no way to uncheck this.
I finally figured out what worked for me on my iphone 12 Pro to fix the issue of not getting notifications. At some point I turned off notifications for texts, which I think it was a of a middle of the night notification issue keeping me up or waking me up at night & I just meant to make it temporary, but that wasn’t what happened. I turned notifications back on, but I noticed I was no longer getting notified long after I turned it back on & I noticed a crescent moon was beside each person’s text from everyone who sent a message & even holding my finger on the message and turning off the Do Not Disturb still wasn’t letting my messages alert me. FINALLY, today I figured out that because I didn’t delete each person’s messages (Yes I’m a message hoarder!!) and it was keeping the Do Not Disturb from turning off. So if your a message hoarder…say Goodbye to all those old messages & you will get your ding back!
We fixed this on an iPhone 11 and an iPhone 12. Go to Settings then Notifications. Open Messages and switch on to Allow Notifications. We don’t know how/why both of our phones finally went silent but after is change they are finally fixed!!
Oh my gosh, game changer. I have tried so many things to get my text notifications to work. Now they do!! thanks so much.
Fresh query: when I got my apple watch (6) I didn’t say yes to the blood oxygen app. Now I can’t seem to find it anywhere… any suggestions greatly appreciated.
I had the phone ring but no alert sounds, no keyboard sounds, music would not play through the speaker.
I tried everything including reboots, hard reboot, resets, etc. Then I noticed that I could hear the alert sounds & music through the headphones, aha! must be a headphone issue! Using a wooden toothpick and a flashlight I was able to pick out a couple of good chunks of lint from the headphone jack. Voila! it works! Now I have to go back into my phone and set it all up again, oh well….
I have an iPhone XR and at least 3 times (most likely more) my phone has reset any kind of notification for text messages. I do get notified when an automated text comes in (that I haven’t already blocked), but not with messages from my contacts. Has anyone ever experienced this?
Thank you! I tried everything. Finally resetting to “default” for the sounds worked. I hadn’t been using any exotic sounds, just the ones that came with the phone, but “default” works now.
Great suggestions but none of them seem to address my problem. When my phone is near my MacBook Pro there is no audible notification on my phone when I receive a text message or iMessage. iMessage notifies on the MacBook but I get NO notification on either if it is a non iPhone text message. I don’t know there was a text message until I happen to pick up my phone.
Wow! best help page ever! Thanks
I have an iPhone XR and at least 3 times (most likely more) my phone has reset any kind of notification for text messages. I do get notified when an automated text comes in (that I haven’t already blocked), but not with messages from my contacts. Has anyone ever experienced this?
If you have ever temporarily changed the date on your phone to some future date for testing that might have trigged the problem. If you receive a notification from a friend during the time you set the date forward then set the date back to normal, you will not get notifications for that friend until that test date is reached. i.e. If you set the date 3 months forward, receive a message, then set the date back, it will be 3 months before you get notifications again. I imagine that the Apple developers have some check in their code that makes sure to notify you only if a message comes is is NOT dated earlier than a pervious message you have been notified for. The only way to fix this is to either wait until that date or delete all message history from that person. You might be able to fix it also if you know the exact message that came in while you had your phone date set to the future and delete it. (I wasn’t able to try that)
As a software developer working on iPhone apps I often need to change my phone date for testing. When I stopped receiving messages from my girlfriend I tried everything to fix it except deleting our history. When I downloaded my iPhone message database to my laptop I saw the message that was out of date and recorded it on my calendar. When we got to that date my notifications started working again. Unfortunately the message in question was a “reaction” to one of my messages and I couldn’t figure out how to delete that like a normal message.
As I last resort I powered the phone off and then back on again and wouldn’t you know it, it’s fixed. Sometimes the good old ‘reboot’ is all you need !!
Hi. I had a iPhone 5s for 3years and i found out that keypad clicks stopped working and text alerts tones were lost. I found by messing about that by turning blue tooth off and on they returned. I have just bought an iPhone 7 and found that this problem still exists. After all this time why have apple not sorted this problem. It’s most annoying , after paying all this money.
Apple 5 watch for Christmas present. Very disappointed incoming texts messages default to watch and do not ping my I phone XR. Am I correct?
Hi George,
You are correct. Notifications go to either your Apple Watch or iPhone, but not both.
When your iPhone is unlocked, you get notifications on your iPhone. If your iPhone is locked or asleep, notifications route to your Apple Watch (unless your Apple Watch is locked with your passcode)
You could try turning off Wrist Detection in your watch’s settings (on the watch or via iPhone’s Watch app, go to Passcode and toggle off wrist detection)
If Wrist Detection is off, you won’t get quick access to Apple Pay on your watch nor any Stand notifications or track your Stand progress. Background heart rate readings are also not registered if Wrist Detection is off.
Additionally, for Apple Watch Series 4 and later, the watch wonʼt automatically make an emergency call even after it has detected a hard impact fall.
I am having a problem with message sound, typing sound, Whats app sound, etc.
Suddenly, the sound for all these become very low or no sound at all.
This issue came from my Iphone six and now, it is in my Iphone XR!
I have tried to change sound, ring tones, etc.
the problem only stpos whenever I restart the phone.
But, starts again teo or 3 days after…
Ever since updating to iOS 13. I have not heard my email sound. I have tried what it says to do and it did not help. Hopefully you can help?
Thank you
Hi Stacy,
Give this a try: go to Settings > Notifications > Mail > Favorite Mailboxes and make sure the notifications are turned on and that you assign a sound there as well.
Repeat this process of allowing notifications and choosing a sound for VIP and Threaded Notifications (if desired)
My IPhone 6s has stopped notifying me when my daughter sends a text to me. It also stopped using the custom text sound I chose for her and her sister. Other senders still have notifications working. I tried turning my phone off and then back on. I checked in settings for any sounds being turned off. I shut off my Bluetooth and then turned it back on. I am very frustrated because that is our main way of communicating.
After my Iphone6s plus updated to ios 13.2, i didn’t receive any notification from my social account . (Facebook,messenger,line ) app. They did not appear on my banner. I checked my notification but it all turn on. I reset all my settings too. What should I do ?
Did you figure out how to fix your issue? I am having the same problem. I receive text/imessage notifications, but that is it. I have tried everything suggested, nothing has worked.
I have an XS Max and I am no longer receiving text notification sounds but only when a text is from another iPhone. I still get alerts from Android phones. This is very frustrating and annoying as I have missed several important messages. How can this be fixed?
Hi Leanne,
Try signing out of iMessage, restart, and then sign back in.
Go to Settings > Messages > and toggle iMessage off.
Restart by powering off, waiting a few minutes, then powering back on
Go back to Settings > Messages and toggle on iMessage
Once back on, check your Notification settings (Settings > Notifications > Messages) and then run a few tests with friends or family.
If that doesn’t work, try resetting all your settings via Settings > General > reset > reset all settings.
* This is usually the last resort since it resets all your personalized features back to factory defaults
* Go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset All
* This resets to default everything in Settings, including notifications, alerts, brightness, and clock settings like wake up alarms
* Resetting all settings also reverts all your personalized and customized features like wallpapers and accessibility settings back to factory defaults.
* Performing this action does not impact any of your personal device data, including photos, texts, documents, and other files
* You need to reconfigure these settings once your iPhone or iDevice restarts
MISSING VOICE ALERT ON NEW MESSAGES.
.. When iPhone is connected to a CarPlay via Bluetooth, the msg notification only vibrate but no sound alert, even the vehicle radio volume is loud. This should be fixed in the next update.
in the latest ios, there is no sound when an email or text goes out. i have selected a sound and nothing. i selected another and still nothing. all my other alerts seem to work and I’m not in silent mode.
HI Leon,
Check your notification settings for these apps. Go to Settings > Notifications. Then verify that allow notifications is toggled on, that you select where you want alerts (like lock screen, notification center, banners) and so forth.
Great blog thanks. This is not a new problem for me or my wife.
Both of use have IOS 13.1.2 – me on 11pro max, her on 8.
Both are not getting alert tones. We have checked all the settings and had changed NOTHING. This loss of message alerts is a recurrent (bad) theme with Apple for the last few years.
After 3 trips to the Apple store with no ring or vibrate with incoming calls, Apple replaced my phone. Still had the problem. The next trip Apple admitted it was a software problem and they are “working” on it.
My iPhone 8 Plus is running iOS 13. My repeat alerts is not working for my messages. I set it at 3 and it still only alert once. I’ve tried all the internet suggestions and instructions and still have the same problem.
Can anyone help? Thanks.
Hi Jay,
Do you pair with an Apple Watch?
If so, temporarily unpair your watch from your iPhone and then run these steps and tests. When you unpair your Apple Watch from your iPhone, your iPhone automatically creates a backup of your Apple Watch. Unpairing erases all data from your Apple Watch–but when you re-pair you connect to your backup when you set the Apple Watch up from that backup.
If you don’t pair with a Watch, follow the steps and see if they help.
1) Force closing the Messages App by double-pressing the home button and swiping up off the Messages app to the top of the screen
2) Open Settings > Notifications > Messages and turn repeat alerts to Never
3) Restart
4) When the iPhone is back on, go back into Settings > Notifications > Messages and turn repeat alerts back on–set to 5 times
5) Ask someone to text you to test it out
If this works, re-pair your Apple Watch back to your iPhone.
Hi Elizabeth,
I don’t have an Apple Watch.
I followed your instructions and tried what you recommended.
My repeat alerts for my text messages still don’t work. If you know of any other possible fixes please let me know.
Thanks for your help.
Go to Settings, then Sound. Toggle “Change with Buttons” off.
Position volume slider to full volume. Adjust to normal volume.
Toggle “Change with Buttons” on
Immediately restart.
Starting about a week ago, I am no longer hearing notification sound on my iPhone for alarms, messages , texts, emails, etc.
Why is this happening?
How can I start getting notification sound?
Please help!
Hi Marie,
Sorry to hear about your notification problems.
First, check that do not disturb is off–Settings > Do Not Disturb. Even if you use this for certain times or while driving, temporarily turn it all off and set your DND while driving to Manually. Then restart your device and see if you get notifications.
Also, check your side switch to ensure it’s not set to mute–the switch is near your volume buttons.
Then, take a look at how you set-up your notification settings–go to Settings > Notifications and review the settings for each app.
I have iPhone xs Max.
I went through and one by one, I checked & did EVERYTHING on this list and still – the sounds do not play when I have an incoming text message.
I guess I’ll have to make an appt at Apple store – my text notifications are more important to me than my phone calls because text messages are the main way my family gets in touch with me.
When I receive a text on 5s the phone vibrates but there’s no sound, I’ve gone to settings & still it won’t allow me to listen to any sounds just vibration patterns. Can anyone help?
Hi Katie,
It sounds like your side switch is set to mute all sounds.
It’s a physical button located just above your volume buttons.
Inspect the button–if you see a thin sliver of orange, then it’s set to mute your ringer. Flip the button in the opposite direction–so you no longer see any orange. That should do the trick!
If the problem persists, let us know
Liz
When I’m using my iPad, my text message alerts don’t work on my iPhone. I can’t seem to find any solution to this. Am I missing something?
Hi Maurice,
One thing to check is if you use Messages in the Cloud. Go to Settings > Apple ID Profile > iCloud > and toggle on Messages. Do this for both the iPad and the iPhone.
Also, on both your iPhone and iPad check Settings > Notifications > Messages to make sure that you select all styles under the alerts section, including the lock screen, notification center, and banners. Change banner style to Persistent.
Then, under Show Previews select Always
Do you want your text messages only on your iPhone and NOT your iPad?
Try turning off, Text Message Forwarding on your iPhone. Go to Settings > Messages > and toggle off Text Message Forwarding.
Another thing to check is that under Settings > Messages > Send & Receive that both your phone number and email address are checked under You can receive iMessages to and reply from.
Hopefully, one of these things works for you.
Liz
My issue was the sound was so low even the volume all the way up it could barely be heard with the phone next to my ear. After trying everything, the system reset worked.
Messages are not ringing
I have deleted text msgs on my phone, but they are still on CarPlay. How do I delete them?
Hi Lynn,
You are not the first person to have this issue with CarPlay and iMessage!
Here are some things to try”
1. restart both your car and your iPhone
2. toggle AirPlane mode on and off via the Settings App not Control Center
3. Ask Siri to read those messages and see if that marks them for deletion on CarPlay
If these three tips don’t help, try forgetting your car Settings > General > CarPlay, and tap Forget This Car. Then add it back by going to Settings > General > CarPlay, tap Available cars, then select your car.
If nothing helps, consider submitting your feedback to Apple.
Thanks, Sam, for your prompt response. I did contact Apple with my problem. Thanks for providing their contact information. Now I’ll cross my fingers and hope a new iOS update will soon resolve everyone’s issues with this problem.
Maureen
This article was extremely well written. It was an enormous help in getting a solution to my iMessage and text alert to sound when the phone was locked.
I recently purchased an iPhone XS Max and installed the latest iOS updates. Never had any difficulties wth any of my previous iPhones, so I’m blaming the iOS version for my current problem.
I used your solution of turning off the Bluetooth and the alert sound works. As soon as I turn the Bluetooth back on, the alert sound for iMessages and texts doesn’t function.
Any suggestions on how to forward this information to Apple’s iOS developers? And any information on when the fix for this will be released?
Thanks!
Hi Maureen,
Thank you for the feedback on the article.
A lot of readers using the latest iOS report this problem, especially on the new iPhone XS/XR models. There doesn’t appear to be one universal solutions; however, some folks tell us that resetting all settings did the trick for them. So if you haven’t tried this one, you might want to.
Always back up first with iCloud or iTunes before resetting all settings. Then go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings.
It is a bit of a drastic action. This resets to default everything in Settings, including notifications, alerts, brightness, and clock settings like wake up alarms.
Performing this action does not impact any of your personal device data, including photos, texts, documents, and other files.
Resetting all settings also reverts all your personalized and customized features like wallpapers and accessibility settings back to factory defaults.
So you need to reconfigure these settings once your iPhone or iDevice restarts.
To get information to Apple Product Developers, use this feedback site.
If you have an Apple Developer account, you can also use this Apple Bug Reporting Site.
Thanks again for the feedback and we hope your iMessage alerts return!
Sam
Ok. Send a test message to the person your having trouble not receiving text notifications from. Tap on the persons or contacts icon in the top Middle, then tap on info on top right, look down on you will see a button to stop notifications from that contact. Turn the button off to begin receiving text notifications from that person once again. Your welcome.
Text message sound notifications are not working while the screen is locked on my iPhone 8 plus.
I’ve tried just about everything.
I also have another iPhone 8 plus for work and text-sound notification is working.
I verified that they both have the same options checked and still isn’t working on my personal phone… also not getting a sound notification on apple watch 3 or thru AirPods.
Hi Nicole,
Sorry to hear about your problems with your iPhone 8 Plus and notifications not sounding off.
Here are some additional tips, which you may or may not have already tried. Sorry for the randomness of these suggestions–unfortunately, there is no ONE reason for this problem so we are covering the bases and providing you additional reader tips.
Try unpairing your Apple Watch (temporarily) and then restart your iPhone. See if you hear notifications when you are not paired with your watch.
Other options are to completely turn off DND–Do Not Disturb (Settings > DND > Off.) Also, make sure Scheduled and Bedtime are off as well. And set DND While Driving to Manually
Make sure your Message App notifications are set to Always under Show Previews
Check that Settings > Notifications > Messages has Allow toggled on, checkmark all alert styles, change the banner style to persistent, Change your Sounds setting to something new and make sure you add a vibration as well. Set Repeat Alerts to something other than Never.
Turn off Bluetooth–see if that makes a difference (Settings > Bluetooth > Off)
Reset your network’s settings. Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings
Some readers found that deleting all current text message threads worked–it’s a bit drastic. But they did find that after deleting all their current messages and then restarting that notifications work again!
Another option some folks found useful was completely signing out of iMessage (Settings > Messages > iMessage), restarting, and then signing back–it’s best to use the same Apple ID as your device (the Apple ID listed for iCloud and iTunes & App Stores).
We hope something here helps.
Sam
At the top left of the iPhone (above) where you can turn the sound up and down is a small port inside is a slide, not knowing I had turned it off, my daughter pushed it forward and all sounds came back, I tried all the things suggested here.
Just read your post and that fixed my problem as I was not getting the alert when charger plugged in, or messenger notifications.
after trying dozens of suggestions from friends and everything on this page — this worked. WTF? Why didn’t apple tell me this?
Many thanks
i went to General-Reset-Reset All Settings
This is the only thing that worked for me. I’m so happy it works now 🙂 It hasnt been working in monthes
Wondering why I payed 1k for an iPhone XS & I have to fix all these issues . Most annoyed.
Here’s what I do know: every time there is an update, something(s) get so screwed up, that many of us don’t update for quite a while.
I did wait, but it seems that is no longer safe.
You can count on many problems with every update. Apple should be able to do better.
swipe left (as if you are deleting a message) and hit show alerts
The issue on my phone was that I had ‘Hide alerts’ turned ON for a particular person. To find this I had to open the Message from them and @ the top click their Name>Info and turn OFF the Hide Alerts…voila!
I don’t know why all these things worked, but they did. I started by restarting the iphone, then went through about a third of this list toggling things on and off again and now I have alert sounds back! None of my settings were off, the side switch was not on mute, I didn’t have the volume turned too far down, Do Not Disturb was not on, all my notification settings were set up correctly…..so I didn’t really change anything, but now things work that didn’t before???
I really hope Apple figures this out; I need to be able to trust my phone to remind me of things!
Really, Apple needs to do more than fix this,”BUG”. “BUG” can be swatted, or sprayed with insecticide, but this is a system error, a persistent system error that started for me and my wife with the introduction of IOS 11 and iPhone 8. Lucky we still have landline phones, otherwise we’d be up the creek without a paddle(s). We do all messaging when we travel, and we travel alot. We stay in touch with family the same way….we’ve done “ALL” the things possible, as-well-as contacting Apple Support, not much help there. I knew more than they did, working as a tech specialist for close to 35 years, go figure.
Hello: I’ve done all that has been suggested and still, the imessage notifications are not appearing; the “red” number. This is on my IPod Touch. It’s been happening for about 2 months now. The only fix has been to “restore” the phone to a previous back-up which seems over the top, every time this happens. Advice?
I have tried everything to correct my iPhone 6. But when I am in my car even as a passenger, I don’t get sound when I get a text message. I get a screen notification but no sound. I have to turn Bluetooth off to get sound. DNDWD is turned off. Nothing else has worked. This is annoying. Apple needs to fix this.
iPhone allows Text Tone notification to be set for individual contacts. This allows you to know (by the tone or vibration sequence) who’s texting without even looking at your phone.
Check the individual contact and see what’s listed under “Text Tone”. Even though standard notifications may be set to one parameter, I had, for some reason, turned off sound notifications through a contact. You can make adjustments in the contact itself.
It took me 2 days to figure this out…
Hi Matt,
Wow, thanks for sharing this awesome tip! We’ll add it to the article, it’s sure to help others. Again, we really appreciate your insight and sharing with us what worked for you.
SK
So many different ways it can be broken! The one that was vexing me seems so obvious now, but I simply could not find it without your help. Reading your article I learned at least one other setting that I will use. Thanks and thanks again.
This also annoyed me for days, to find out the case I was using pushed the “do not disturb”/ silence button (over volume buttons to the left)
Causing no text message alerts, no call ringing No texting key pad sounds… I
Checked every setting over & over, I was on verge of tossing phone.. never knew about the side silence button since prior phone was an Samsung. Hope this helps others, yes I have watch that sounded but phone itself would not.
This one worked for me:
” Look for a setting called SILENCE under Do Not Disturb. You see two options: Always and While iPhone is locked. Switch it to the unchecked setting (for me While iPhone is locked was checked, so I changed it to Always.) Once I switched that setting, my audio notifications returned for both messages and emails! It doesn’t make sense, but it worked, go figure! ”
Thanks for the help – Have a great day !!!!
The text says nothing about not getting a notification sound on the phone when having a bluetooth headset connected. iPhone’s seems to be the only smartphone with this “feature”. I have a Beats X WITH the “amazing” W1 chip by the way.
Thank you! This was driving me batty! I was using the doorbell chime under classic tones. It looks like it doesn’t like that it all any more. First, I changed default as suggested. When that worked, I changed to another tone that I prefer. It seems to be working now.
We are glad it worked for you!! Thank You for stopping by at AppleToolbox.
Great checklist! After checking my sound and notification settings I couldn’t figure this out. Found that DND was misconfigured (silent when locked). Thanks!
Thanks for the feedback! Glad it worked out. We appreciate you taking the time to visit us.
I was deleteing a message, but beside the “delete” message is a “ show alerts or hide alerts”. I accidently had changed this to “hide alerts”. By tapping on it you can change setting. I didn’t see any “moon” as mentioned in other comments in “hide alerts” but this may solve someone’s problem.
HI RM,
Thank you for sharing what worked for you! We’ll add it to our reader tips section. And yes, that crescent moon seems to have a mind of its own, showing up on some devices and not on others!
SK
I tried everything to fix my tone alerts for texting. I tried shutting down and forced hard reset and it still isn’t working ?
I get this intermittently, where my phone will sometimes make a sound and sometimes not for the same contact. I mess with a bunch of stuff (thanks for adding to my list of stuff to mess with) and it works. Or maybe it would have sounded next time anyway since it’s an intermittent issue.
But the thing is that if Apple is going to charge $800 to $1149 for a phone, and crow about how much profit they are making, how about they make the thing consistently tell me when I have a message from work.
Maybe they could take someone off the team that is focused on perfecting the talking animated poo.
Thanks I changed message notification to default and problem is resolved.
This is not a resolved problem when I just spent 1149 on a phone.
This was driving me absolutely nuts. I ran through the whole list and checked everything, including shutting my Apple Watch completely off.
It turns out that for some reason, having my Messages app on my Mac enabled with my iCloud account, it was blocking the notifications from going to my phone. If you’ve run through this whole list and it’s still not working, go to Messages on your Mac, File->Preferences and disable the account.
HI Nick,
Thanks for sharing the tip that worked for you! There’s a lot of things that cause problems so it’s hard to isolate just one. We’ll add yours into the list.
Cheers,
Liz
Thank you! Do not disturb was a new one for me. That fixed it!
Brian,
Great! Thanks for letting us know. Really appreciate the feedback so we know we’re on the right track.
Liz
I got it working.
I don’t know what did the trick but I deleted that persons contact added it again and then deleted the conversation and now I’m recieving notifications
Hi Sha
Exactly the same issue for only one contact. Very frustrating- haven’t reset but everything else tried my many of iPhone users to no avail. I think it only happened after a recent update-everything was fine until then.
Thanks
Lisa
This problem plagued me for months! Turned out I had somehow enabled DND (Hide Alerts) for my wife! I don’t recall doing this but whatever. It seems to have happened when I updated to iOS 11 a few weeks ago. Anyway, she was getting really upset with me not answering her texts (which I never saw.) So together we figured it out after reading this article. Thanks for the tip! Saved my butt with my wife.
Shane
I am having his issue with only one contact. I won’t know I have a message until I click in my messages and it looks as if it has already been read. No sound nor message indication somhleing i have one unread text. I don’t want to delete the whole text thread. None of these steps helped me.
Hi Sha,
Are you sure you do not have DND on for this particular contact? Check that contact in the Message app using the “I” in the upper right and look for the a Do Not Disturb or Alerts toggle–if it’s enabled, disable it.
When one contact has this issue, it’s almost always DND or Hide Alerts was somehow enabled.
Keep us posted.
Liz
Not sure if this was mentioned or not, but if you want to get notifications on both your iPhone and your Apple Watch, just turn off wrist detection on the Watch.
Sure, this disables some abilities, like Apple Pay and wrist detection, amongst others, but it does allow you to get a notification on both devices.
Hi James,
Yes, that is an awesome tip! Thanks for sharing it.
Liz
I finally got mine to work again. I followed everything in the post save a soft or hard system reset. Then I tried a forced restart. This still didn’t fix the problem.
After I forced restart I checked my notifications in the message app again. (for like the 15th time) and low and behold now the notifications were turned completely off. I turned them back on and now it works again. Trust me I checked the app notifications in message plenty of times and even tried cycling them several times. I have an older 5s so this might not help anyone else. I never had this problem until update 11.
Just happy to have my piiiiiiiing back.(I never thought I would miss that annoying sound)
BTW great article I would have never got it working again without it. Very clear and all encompassing.
Awesome Shawn!
And hey you are not alone with the 5S (we have one that we love) AND not alone in this problem. Yup, it happened to us too–a lot of patience required and always checking and rechecking the settings to make sure that iOS hasn’t reset them to something else.
Whew! Glad it’s working again.
Liz
I just updated to IOS 11.1 and changed my banner to persistent. On the sleep and lock screen texts are still not showing up. I have to unlock my phone and go to messages before I know if there is a text. I checked all my settings and they are correct based on every article I’ve read and apple support. Please advise in what to do now. Thank you.
Hi Lisa,
Sorry to hear that! Totally stinks. Have you check that in Settings > Notifications > Show Previews is set to Always? Also, folks report that toggling off Show in History helps, Settings > Notifications > Messages > Toggle Show in History off.
And, if you have a lot of notifications iOS 11 put them into a sort of waiting room, that is accessed from the lock screen by swiping from the middle of your screen to the top of the screen.
If you’re still not seeing anything, it might be some setting getting in the way. So rather than go through each and every settings, try a Reset All Settings (Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings.) This does not erase any data or documents (photos, videos, books, and so forth) but it does remove any special settings, like WiFi passwords, accessibility settings, and other setting customizations.
Keep us posted if any of these help,
Liz
My text messages will appear in lock mode for a little bit; but after about a half hour or so they disappear.
I’m not with my phone 24/7 and while I’m at work I sometimes only have time to read what’s on the locked screen and reply as needed.
How do I get these to come back until I unlock my phone like I used to do. I have IOS 11.0.3 version.
Hu Jeanette,
Let’s update your Messages Notification settings. Go to Settings > Notifications > Messages and underneath Alerts change the device setting from temporary (the default) to Persistent. Just tap on the screen icon above the work persistent–it should get circled.
That should do the trick!
SK
No they do not fix the problem. I have updated to the latest 11.0.3. And still have issue. Date and time “automatic” fixes the problem. I don’t want date and time on automatic, I like my phone fast. As soon as I put it back to what time I want it changes the order I receive messages again. The responding messages are coming in above my messages, therefore not making sound.
In the new ios11 I have stopped receiving message notifications because I have my phone running fast. I get the first notification but not for responses because apparently they were delivered in the past. This is not an issue I want fixed by running my phone at the correct time. I Like it to be fast. It was a non issue in all previous iOS versions
Hi Sally,
Please go to Settings > Notifications and toggle everything ON. Change Repeat Alerts to Once. And update your Banners from Temporary to Persistent. Just tap on the Persistent Banner picture. The go to Settings > General > Date & Time and toggle ON Set Automatically. If it’s already ON, toggle it Off and set it manually to your current location and time zone.
Once all these settings are changed, perform a restart by pressing power and swiping off. Then power up again.
See if these setting changes make a difference.
I had recently started using the iMessage app on OSX again. For some reason it had turned off the notifications in the iMessage’s app on OSX was turned off some how. An incoming message is first directed to you OSX, assuming you are logged into iMessages, if you are not, the second route the message will take is to your Apple watch, unless your phone is unlocked – in which case the message will be delivered to the latter. Order of operations apparently.