Why are my calls going straight to voicemail?

First: which calls go to voicemail?

The pattern tells you where to look. Call your own number from another phone, and ask a customer or friend whose number isn't in your contacts to call too.

• Every call, without a ring: call forwarding, Do Not Disturb or a Focus, Airplane Mode, or no signal.
• Only numbers not in your contacts: Silence or Screen Unknown Callers on iPhone, or spam and unknown-number filtering on Android.
• Only one person: their number is blocked.
• Only while you're on another call: Call Waiting is off.
• It rings, but too briefly to answer: your carrier's no-answer timer is short.

Causes and where to check

Check an iPhone

Apple's own checklist for calls that don't ring, in order. Test after each step.

1. 1Turn Silent mode off and update to the latest iOS.
2. 2Open Control Center and turn off any active Focus (Do Not Disturb, Sleep, Work and so on). Check Settings > Focus for a Focus scheduled to turn on by itself, for example during work hours.
3. 3Go to Settings > Apps > Phone > Call Forwarding and make sure it's off.
4. 4In the same Phone settings, set Screen Unknown Callers to Never. With Silence selected, calls from numbers not in your contacts are silenced and sent to voicemail, which on a business line means most new customers.
5. 5Under Call Filtering, turn off Unknown Callers, and check Blocked Contacts for numbers blocked by mistake.
6. 6Turn Wi-Fi Calling on, so calls still reach you where cellular signal is weak.

Check an Android phone

Menus differ between manufacturers, so the names below may vary slightly on your phone.

1. 1Swipe down from the top of the screen and turn off Do Not Disturb.
2. 2In Settings > Modes, open each mode (Do Not Disturb, Bedtime, Driving or your own) and check when it turns on automatically and which calls its People filter allows. Turning on Allow repeat callers lets a call through when the same person calls twice in 15 minutes.
3. 3In the Phone app settings, turn off spam or unknown-number filtering, which can send those calls to voicemail without a notification.
4. 4Check the blocked numbers list.
5. 5Check call forwarding (on Samsung, under Supplementary services) and turn off any rule you didn't set on purpose.
6. 6Turn Airplane Mode off and check your signal.

Reset forwarding at the carrier

Forwarding is stored by your carrier, not only on the phone, so an old rule can keep sending calls away after you change phones. Dial these from the phone that has the problem.

Other causes carriers list

If the settings above are fine, T-Mobile and AT&T suggest checking these:

• Call Waiting is off, so a second caller goes to voicemail while you're on a call.
• Bluetooth is sending the ring to a paired device, such as a car or headset, and you don't hear it.
• A notification or silent switch on the side of the phone is set.
• Your carrier's no-answer delay is short. On T-Mobile the delay before an unanswered call forwards can be set from 5 up to 30 seconds.
• A problem on the account, such as an outage or a billing block. Your carrier can see this; your phone can't.

Stop losing the calls you can't answer

Fixing the settings gets your phone ringing again. It doesn't help when you're on another call, with a customer, driving, or closed. Voicemail hands the work back to the caller, and many hang up and call someone else. The fix is to forward only unanswered calls to someone, or something, that answers. With conditional call forwarding, your phone rings first; when you don't pick up, are busy, or have no signal, the call goes to an AI receptionist that answers your questions, books appointments, takes the caller's details, and sends you a recording, transcript and summary.

Forward unanswered calls to an AI receptionist

1. 1Sign up with your email and a sentence about your business, or its website. Daber AI drafts the agent.
2. 2Talk to it in your browser and fix anything it gets wrong.
3. 3Get its number: a US or Canada number is ready right away.
4. 4On your business line, set conditional call forwarding (no answer, busy and unreachable) to the agent's number. Our call forwarding guides give the steps for each carrier.
5. 5Call your own number, let it ring out, and check that the agent answers.