How to stop getting incoming call notifications on your Apple Watch

With a paired Apple Watch, when you get a call on your iPhone you also hear the tone and feel the vibration on your wrist. If you don’t like receiving call notifications on your Apple Watch, this tutorial shows you how to make them stop.

Stop getting calls on Apple Watch

How to turn off call alerts on Apple Watch

Follow these steps to disable ringtone and haptic alerts for incoming calls on Apple Watch:

  1. Open the Watch app on your iPhone.
  2. Scroll down the My Watch section and tap Phone.
  3. Tap Custom.
  4. Turn off the switches for Sound and Haptic under Alerts and Ringtone.
Turn off Sound and Haptics for phone notifications on Apple Watch

From now on when you receive a call, your Apple Watch won’t ring or vibrate. It won’t even wake the Apple Watch display.

However, if you lift your wrist or wake the screen, you will still see the incoming call alert and the buttons to receive or disconnect the call. Image below:

Incoming call screen on Apple Watch

There is no way to stop this permanently. Even if you choose Custom > Notifications Off, you will still see the incoming call screen (without the sound or vibrations). But, you won’t see the call screen if you put your Apple Watch in Do Not Disturb or enable Airplane mode (which disconnects it from the iPhone and thus breaks all connections).

Here’s how to stop seeing incoming calls on Apple Watch:

1) Press the Digital Crown and tap Settings.

2) Select Focus.

3) From the bottom, turn off Mirror my iPhone. This ensures your iPhone doesn’t enter Do Not Disturb when you enable it on your Watch. As a result, you can still get calls and notifications on your iPhone.

Turn off Focus Mirror my iPhone on Apple Watch

4) Press the Digital Crown to return to the watch face, and from here, swipe up on the screen to access the watchOS Control Center.

5) Tap the crescent moon icon > Do Not Disturb > On.

Enable Do Not Disturb on Apple Watch to stop incoming call notifications

That’s it. You have successfully enabled Do Not Disturb on your Apple Watch. After this, when you get a call on your iPhone or Apple Watch, it won’t even show on your watch screen even if you wake it up. In other words, there will be no sound, no vibration, and no on-screen alert for that call.

One major downside is that when your Apple Watch is in Do Not Disturb, you will also miss all the incoming texts and notification alerts on your wrist. You can turn off Do Not Disturb by opening the Apple Watch Control Center and tapping the purple crescent moon icon.

What if I turn off all phone notifications on iPhone

Even if you go to iPhone Settings > Notifications > Phone and turn off Allow Notifications, you will still get incoming call notifications on your iPhone (and Apple Watch). Phone is an important part of your iPhone, and turning its notification off is impossible unless you put your iPhone in Do Not Disturb mode, use Focus, or enable Airplane mode.

Related tutorials: