Do your friends and family keep asking you why your notifications are silenced? If you’re not actually using a Focus mode like Do Not Disturb, this is probably a head-scratcher for you.
This exact thing has happened to me for months. I use the Sleep Focus mode on my Apple Watch at night and turn it off as soon as I wake up. Otherwise my Apple Watch just shows a big digital clock all day. That’s no good.
After a colleague asked me why I was muting their messages during a conversation, I double checked that nothing was in a Focus mode. Not the Mac, not the iPhone, not the iPad, not the Apple Watch.
The fix was the typical turn it off and turn it back on. Well, in this case, turn it on and turn it back off. A few rounds of that on different devices resolved the random silenced notifications message for the other person. No feelings were hurt (they say), but it won’t stop happening.
It turns out this is a thing more people are seeing. iPhone users report experiencing this issue on various models of iPhones with both iOS 15 and iOS 16. Oh, but maybe iOS 17 resolves it? Nope.
Top comment by Steve Stutz
Thank you Zac for your article.
There is a workaround for this that has at least worked for me, and hopefully it will work for you and others as well:
Go to Settings
Scroll down to and tap Focus
Scroll down to and or just tap Focus Status
Once there, there is a toggle you can turn on or off called Share Focus Status. If the toggle is on (Green) and you have created any Focuses, you can decide which Focus Statuses you do or do not want to share. If you turn Share Focus Status off (Gray), nobody will see if you have any Focuses on or off. I personally share my Focus Status for Meetings, Driving, and Sleep Focuses but that’s just me.
Hopefully many of you will find this helpful!
If you’re seeing this too, the good news is you’re not alone. That probably means Apple will work to resolve it sooner than later (although we first wrote about this last fall and there’s still no fix).
The bad news is there’s no real workaround for now. If you’re not in a Focus mode, there’s nothing to turn off. Just keep toggling those Focus modes.
Oh, and one more thing. This bug doesn’t actually silence notifications when contacts are seeing that message. It’s just creating awkward situations where people think you’re ignoring them. On the other hand, maybe this is just Siri making assumptions…
The problem persists with iOS 17.
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