Free your iPhone from spam with these 10 tips and tricks

The iPhone has become an all-in-one device for communication, entertainment, productivity, and more. Naturally, as we install more apps, the number of unwanted notifications keeps growing. Spam is no longer limited to occasional emails, texts, and calls; many apps now use push notifications to deliver ads, irrelevant recommendations, and other distracting alerts. Fortunately, iOS includes a comprehensive set of tools that help you reduce all sorts of spam types and focus on what actually matters.

1. Good ol’ blocking

Blocking remains one of the simplest, most straightforward ways to shut down a consistent source of noise. If the same phone number keeps texting or calling you, you can easily head to the info card in Messages or the Phone app’s call log and hit the Block button. All relevant third-party communication apps offer a blocking functionality as well.

Similarly, if an app you installed has been abusing the push notification system, you can tweak or revoke the permission. In the Notifications section of the Settings app, you can decide how an app gets to notify you, if at all. For example, you could turn off the Sounds toggle to receive silent alerts or uncheck the Lock Screen option to stop seeing banners when your iPhone is idle.

Before revoking an app’s notification permission, it’s wise to scan the settings in the app itself. Many apps let you opt out of certain notification categories. This enables you to still receive updates about the things you care about, and nothing else.

2. Limit mirroring

The Apple ecosystem lets iPhone users mirror calls to nearby iPads, Macs, Apple TVs, and Apple Watches. That’s not to mention that, beyond calls, macOS and watchOS support third-party app notification mirroring, and AirPods can interrupt your music playback to announce incoming alerts. These integrations are welcome, but can make using our everyday devices overwhelming. Fortunately, you can choose what alerts get mirrored to other devices without completely blocking them on iOS.

In the Settings app, under Notifications, you can turn off (for individual or all apps) the Announce Notifications feature that reads out alerts when your AirPods are connected. Likewise, you can go to each app’s notification settings and disable the Show on Mac toggle to stop mirroring alerts to macOS. The Watch app offers a comparable section to manage the notifications iOS pushes to watchOS, too.

To prevent all of your devices from ringing every time someone calls you, you can head to the Phone app’s settings and turn off Calls on Other Devices.

3. AI notification handling

If you’re using a newer iPhone, the on-device AI can analyze the contents of your alerts and highlight the ones it deems important. Apple Intelligence can also summarize long or multiple texts to make grasping their content easier. To set these features up, go to the Prioritize Notifications and Summarize Notifications pages in the Settings app’s Notifications section.

4. Scheduled summaries

Scheduled Summary is yet another alert management tool that helps you avoid unnecessary distractions. When enabled in the Notifications settings page, the feature bundles unimportant alerts throughout the day and delivers them together at a time of your choosing. iOS will still notify you about time-sensitive updates, like calls and urgent notifications. 

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5. Focus modes

Focus is Apple’s advanced do-not-disturb system, letting you pick which apps and contacts can notify you across your devices. You can create multiple Focus modes with varying rules to match your different activities. The Focus mode dedicated to work, for example, would let alerts from your boss and collaborative apps through. You could also set in-app filters that hide content accordingly, like concealing non-work inboxes in the Mail app. To set it up, head to Focus in the Settings app.

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6. Messaging controls

While blocking is effective for alerts coming from the same source, users often get spammed by random numbers. Luckily, the Messages app accommodates that, letting you silence all texts (or non-time-sensitive ones) from unknown numbers. It could also place them in a separate inbox to keep your main view clutter-free. Go to Messages settings, enable the Filter Spam and Screen Unknown Senders toggles, then customize how you want the feature to behave.

7. Call management

In Settings > Apps > Phone, you can enable similar filters for incoming calls. Under Screen Unknown Callers, you can choose if unsaved numbers are silenced or asked for the reason of calling automatically using on-device AI. The latter option will display a transcript in real time, so you can pick up and take over the call if it turns out to be relevant. Otherwise, enabling the Unknown Callers toggle under Call Filtering will move missed calls and voicemails from unsaved numbers to a separate list.

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8. Third-party solutions

While call management tools have become reliable on iOS, you could still opt for third-party apps for added functionality. TrueCaller, for example, can warn you about known spam/scam numbers and look up the likely name of the person ringing you.

9. Mail filters

Like Messages and Phone, Apple’s Mail app offers automatic lists to help keep your inbox clean. You can enable the Categories toggle under the 3-dot menu in your inbox to reveal five main lists—Primary, Transactions, Updates, Promotions, and All Mail. The Mail app will scan every incoming email and place it in the respective list, reserving the Primary list for essential messages.

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10. Calendars

Lastly, many users complain about receiving a ton of spam alerts from the Calendar app. This happens when you accidentally subscribe to a malicious calendar online. To undo the damage, go to the Calendars section of the Calendar app, locate the troublemaker, and unsubscribe from it using its info panel.