iPhone: Enable or disable call forwarding
Posted by Quinn McHenry in Apple iPhone
The call forwarding feature on the iPhone is hands down the coolest one I’ve seen on a mobile. With other phones, I’ve setup fake contacts with the dialing code so that I could quickly dial the number to forward or unforward my phone. Forwarding your iPhone is different and definitely cool.
The forwarding setting is in the phone settings screen. To get there, tap the Settings icon from the Home screen, the tap the Phone button. On the Phone settings screen, you’ll see Call Forwarding near the bottom in the Calls section. Tap this button and you’ll see something like this:
The forwarding slider will be in the off position and there will not be a phone number displayed under it in the Forwarding To button.
To engage call forwarding tap or slide the switch to the right of Call Forwarding and the Forwarding To editor screen will slide in, something like this:
Type in the number you want to forward your iPhone to and tap the Call Forwarding button near the upper left corner of the screen. You’ll see something like this:
The slider now shows On and is bright blue. The phone number forwarded to is displayed on the Forwarding To button.
To turn off call forwarding, just tap or slide the Call Forwarding switch into the Off position on this same screen in the future.
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October 23, 2008 at 7:22 pm, Surekha said:
Your comments and screenshots have been helpful for me to get thisfeature setup. Thanks for posting this info
December 31, 2008 at 2:21 am, Steve Jobs said:
Apparently you’ve never used Windows Mobile circa 2002.
April 24, 2009 at 12:24 pm, Adrian said:
You are so right Steve! What’s with Apple not having call forward busy, no answer and out of range diversions as well?
January 10, 2009 at 6:52 pm, Randy said:
If there was a way to auto call forward when charging, that would be great.
July 22, 2010 at 1:13 pm, Demoncoder said:
Randy, you are so lazy. Do I have to come move your lips to make you talks?
January 21, 2009 at 2:25 am, biijansen said:
Its good..but if you dont seem to able to store multiple numbers …however it certainly does the job
January 14, 2010 at 8:30 pm, Piperchick said:
I agree that not being able to store multiple forward numbers is a pain. I preferred setting up a “fake” contact and selected forward to home or to work witha single touch, not having to scroll through multiple screens. Not terribly friendly.
January 26, 2009 at 12:38 pm, Jesper said:
Thanks for posting this article. Unfortunately I have to disagree! I have owned dozens of SonyEricsson phones and I think they do the job much better. It seems that when you turn on forwarding, everything is forwarded, but what about forwarding “when busy”, “When out of reach” etc.
I think that the iPhone does everything – and I love it – but call forwarding is not one of the best features (Or I am too stupid to figure it out)
April 17, 2013 at 8:16 pm, Nicole said:
> NOT HAPPY…I thought Apple were leader in the market and would have call forward when busy, no answer and out of range divert, won’t be investing in Apple Iphone.
Luckily I own a Nokia N9 and it has these features.
Unfortunate for Apple Iphone users though.
February 03, 2009 at 7:50 pm, skube said:
Yeah, great but it should really be a one or two click process – not five! Also, there is no indication that your phone is currently forwarding calls. Other phones (SE) have a little icon that appears in the status bar. iPhone fails in the call forwarding dept. IMHO.
August 06, 2009 at 5:07 pm, Anonymous said:
Might not have been 6 months ago, but my iPhone shows a phone with an arrow pointing to the right to show it is call forwarding mode. I agree, though that getting to it to turn it on and off is too painful. I have emailed Apple about allowing folks to make shortcuts on the homepage with icons to go directly to things we use daily, like Bluetooth, Call Forwarding, WiFi, etc. I wonder if they ever listen? LOL
February 18, 2009 at 11:08 pm, Misty said:
Opinions aside on whether this is the best Call Forwarding is neither here nor there. I appreciate the post because you clearly outlined what I needed to do. THANK YOU!
March 08, 2009 at 10:47 am, bthe boy said:
my slide thingy doesnt work and ‘call forwarding’is grey not black
March 08, 2009 at 10:50 am, the boy said:
srry im dthe boy it was supposed to be the boy anyway i cant slide my off/on for call barring? plz can anyone help m e
June 08, 2010 at 6:36 pm, Pamela said:
I cant either I think its because they interrupted my service.
March 31, 2009 at 6:17 pm, nomad said:
I need to forward only certain incoming numbers not everything. That would be cool. Is there a third party app that would allow this?
May 12, 2009 at 7:24 pm, We barker said:
Does anyone have an app for enable/disable call forward from the home screen
I use this all the time and would like to avoid the steps to wade their the menu’s
June 26, 2009 at 1:09 am, monts said:
I agree, we need a faster short cut or method to turn forward on or off. A speed dial is faster the the current set up.
May 26, 2009 at 8:44 pm, Jeremy Tuber said:
Hey thanks for posting this – pretty simple feature on the iPhone but I just didn’t know it existed!
@JeremyTuber
June 03, 2009 at 12:09 am, Saleem said:
Far too basic, I contiually forget to swicth this feature off, plesae apple or any third parties please give us some software that would make this very usefuk feature more user frindly. I agrre with a alot of comments , we often only want to forward calls when say out of range, busy or even better still say timed, so that we set what time we want this feature turned off or on and alos give us an option to put more than one number in the call forwading screen and we can then choose which number we want to forward to at what time etc.
July 03, 2009 at 2:44 pm, Ben Worrell said:
My previous 2 simple / free LG branded phones had better call forwarding capabilities. The oldest phone was made over 5 years ago….
2 things I find missing from the iPhone’s call forwarding capabilities:
1) With iPhone – I cannot select a number from my contact list call me lazy but LG had it. 5 years ago.
2) Only option is to Forward all calls, I cannot select to forward only when busy, No Answer or Not Available. again this feature has been around for a long time on simpler phones…
November 08, 2009 at 4:15 pm, iphoneforwarding.com said:
check out my site it will teach you how to forward your call two different ways with details.
copy and past or go to http://www.iphoneforwarding.com/
August 06, 2009 at 12:11 am, oldteacher said:
I love this feature but…I need to forward just one incoming phone number to another line, not all of my calls. Is this possible??
September 11, 2009 at 1:40 am, Anonymous said:
Thanks for your posting, iPhone is a business phone
September 11, 2009 at 6:16 am, Joe said:
Well I discovered something interesting on my iphone today. I previously had sony ericsson phone which enables you to forward calls that are busy, not answered and unavailable. I was annoyed that the iphone only allowed you to forward all calls.
Well what i discovered what that when I moved the simcard from the old sony phone to the new iphone, the call forwarding features still work on the iphone. I don’t know how it does this. And on the iphone I have the call forwarding feature off because if you leave it on it forwards all calls.
By entering the code *#61# then tap call, the iphone shows you what number calls are forwarded to when unanswered. Also I do not know how to turn off the call forwarding feature. Perhaps I need to put the sim back in to the sony phone, change the call forwarding rules and maybe this will work.
It feels like that the call forwarding rules were saved in the sim card.
Anyone else let me know if they have the same thing on their iphone.
November 08, 2009 at 4:15 pm, iphoneforwarding.com said:
me too!!!
check out my site it will teach you how to forward your call two different ways with details.
copy and past or go to http://www.iphoneforwarding.com/
November 08, 2009 at 4:18 pm, iphoneforwarding.com said:
that is correct THEY ARE SAVED IN THE Sim CARD
October 19, 2009 at 12:45 pm, Anonymous said:
As far as I am concerned the IPhone call forward is the most primitive I have ever used. My oldest Nokia (over ten years ago) had conditional call forwarding.
Primitive! not the only facility missing either. Seems like phoning is considered a secondary and unimportant feature. Great games but a crap phone system.
October 28, 2009 at 4:00 am, Anonymous said:
I found out how to do it. you have yo press. *004*1XXX-XX-XXXX# the x’s is the number you are forwarding to.
you might want to *#61# first so you know the number of your original VM box # DONT FORGET THE pound at the end! *004*XXX-XX-XXXX#
November 08, 2009 at 10:15 am, Anonymous said:
I have done the above, but I got the following message:
Could not save call forwarding setting
Dismiss
November 08, 2009 at 4:11 pm, iphoneforwarding.com said:
check out my site it will teach you how to forward your call two different ways with details.
copy and past or go to http://www.iphoneforwarding.com/
December 01, 2009 at 3:38 pm, Anonymous said:
Thanks for the explaination. My Treo 700P had “Call Director” that would automatically forward to one of 5 or 6 numbers when plugged in to the charger. Then when removed, it would ask if you wanted to stay forwarded. You could also pick one of the numbers manually. That’s what we need on the iphone, not this. I’d rather just dial *72xxx-xxx-xxxx.
Come on Apple-get with the 21st century.
December 01, 2009 at 3:58 pm, Anonymous said:
Thanks for the explaination. My Treo 700P had “Call Director” that would automatically forward to one of 5 or 6 numbers when plugged in to the charger. Then when removed, it would ask if you wanted to stay forwarded. You could also pick one of the numbers manually. That’s what we need on the iphone, not this. I’d rather just dial *72xxx-xxx-xxxx
December 05, 2009 at 12:40 pm, Anonymous said:
Or you can use “Call forward” app from appstore. Yes, fake contacts, but you can pick from contact list and set up separate forwarding for no reply, busy, out of reach sitution.
http://game4mob.com/index.php/callforwardiphone
December 29, 2009 at 1:07 pm, Anonymous said:
What we need, though, is an intelligent app that can be set to “car” (Bluetooth on); “home” (forward unanswered/out of range calls to home number) “office (Bluetooth off, forward all calls to office phone). Think about how the “airplane” mode works — it would be great if there was a programmable analog to that for the different situations.
January 06, 2010 at 7:35 pm, Anonymous said:
does it fwd sms?
January 07, 2010 at 2:22 pm, iphoneforwarding.com said:
no
February 25, 2010 at 12:23 am, Anonymous said:
are you serious the iPhone has the worst call forwarding . You have to forward all calls . It does’nt give you the option to forward the call you don’t want to take . You have to forward all calls . I own a 24 hour business so I forward call if I don’t answer so two phones ring and I don’t miss the call ,but can’t do that with the iphone because it don’t give you the option forward if not answered like every other phone I’ve had .
February 25, 2010 at 4:53 am, iphoneforwarding.com said:
Aparently you did not read carefully…it has to do with the network, not the phone. Some phones allow you to change your network settings from the phone. In this case you have to change the network settings yourself. Vist iPhoneforwarding com for more info
Sam
April 30, 2010 at 7:38 pm, Anonymous said:
call forwarding works fine but i need something that if i cant answer the phone myself then it goes to another selected phone.
is this possible?
i still need the ability to answer myself.
May 22, 2010 at 1:14 am, doogster said:
Thanks for this, I new it was easy just didnt feel like searching for it on my phone, quicker to google it lol
June 14, 2010 at 1:47 am, Abc said:
Thanks, helpful!
June 16, 2010 at 6:51 pm, Neenapandey said:
Thanks. It was sure helpful.
June 22, 2010 at 7:24 am, Starlix said:
I think Americans will go to heaven after the development of this innovative technology
God bless u Americans
June 27, 2010 at 6:24 pm, Lanny said:
Thanks this made it easy….
June 27, 2010 at 7:46 pm, Anonymous said:
No problem!
July 02, 2010 at 9:17 am, Estherhasi said:
What’s wrong with my phone when I disabled the call forwarding but when I do a call or get one it shows me a little message saying the call forwarding is active and I have to dismiss? when someone calls me I can’t take the call until i pressed the dismiss button.. Hope someone can help.
July 12, 2010 at 12:07 am, Blake said:
Thanks
August 07, 2010 at 5:08 pm, Jmdoman said:
What I want to know is how to turn call forwarding on when my phone is BROKEN- which is the only time I’d need it. Like right now.
August 13, 2010 at 7:07 pm, Fatii07 said:
i keep typing in a number, but it automatically goes back to no when i get to the third screen shot above,
August 13, 2010 at 7:08 pm, fatii07 said:
i mean “off”
August 15, 2010 at 6:29 pm, Patricia said:
we’d really like to foward only when a call from a particular# is received. Does anyone know how to do this or where we can buy the app?
August 17, 2010 at 8:49 pm, 1chris99 said:
HELP! I just got this phone and am trying to forward my calls if no answer after 4 rings. Does anyone know how to accomplish this? I want to forward the calls to my home phone, not their call notes.
August 19, 2010 at 1:09 pm, Tlawrence said:
I have left my phone at home and am at work. Is there a way to remotely forward my calls from my iphone to my office phone?
August 19, 2010 at 5:03 pm, Anonymous said:
Does this help?
http://www.att.com/gen/general?pid=10117
September 14, 2010 at 4:47 am, Guest said:
This is very basic in iphone. Blackberry provides the best options for call forwarding, you can setup different numbers for network not available,switched off ..etc
October 06, 2010 at 2:30 pm, Email said:
cool thanks.
October 10, 2010 at 10:20 pm, Lyn100 said:
Everytime I tapped the little call forwarding icon on the top left corner – it would take me back to the screen – as shown – BUT the call forwarding button would switch to “off” automatically.
October 21, 2010 at 7:23 pm, Emmanuel Ashy said:
i still can do it
December 03, 2010 at 2:40 pm, Wang_bruce said:
Exellent!
December 14, 2010 at 9:55 pm, Aflege said:
call forwarding is OFF but calls continue to be forwarded. If the phone if off or I am in a dead zone, the calls go to the no-longer-forwarded-to number. If the phone if on, they go to the answering service as usual. How can I get rid of the forwarding?
February 25, 2011 at 10:31 am, gianna said:
I have found that skype is having a good options of call forwarding and about call details..It is good to know about i-phone call forwarding option, Thanks for sharing it, ecommerce web developer
March 02, 2011 at 1:36 am, Snakeinkeywest said:
sony lets you accept calls only from who you want to talk to and i like the software a lot better does anyone know of other phones with this feature as i am locked in with att because of the phone i must have
March 11, 2011 at 7:57 pm, had2makeupaname said:
That’s like 8 or 10 steps! Remember the lowly Palm Treo? All I had to do was place it in the cradle at work (where I get no phone reception) and it would automatically be forwarded to my work phone. Then take it out of the cradle and it would ask if I wanted it to stay forwarded or not. Now THAT is cool.
June 23, 2011 at 10:21 am, Aneesaluthra said:
Not working for my voice mail forwarding number.. Please tell me what to
Enter on Airtel network
September 17, 2011 at 10:25 pm, Kimberly said:
I have the verison iphone4. How do i get ride of this symbol that is buging the everything out of me! And i hate it. I cant go to settings/phone/ callforwarding to turn off bc it doesnt show that on my phone..!!! What do i do!? I called but nothing happen, n i turned off my phone but still nothing happened!!
December 28, 2011 at 4:11 pm, Ang said:
I have very bad signal if any when im at home. Im trying to set up call forwarding but it doesnt work! I have follwoed the instrutions phone-call forwarding, i turn it on and it either has loading or nothing in the box. So i entre number……… But i cant seem to keep that number in the i press call frowarding botton again but nothing happens, it goes back the starting point again! I have read instrutions there they say out *72, then entre no and press call button! But its not there! Someone please help, i use this phone for work and also private calls and i need it!
Please help
May 06, 2012 at 2:01 am, Chiple said:
Hello I have the new I phone and I don’t see those funcations u are tAlking about
June 02, 2012 at 4:24 pm, Kevin said:
I used my wife’s number as the call forward number but now she can’t call me even when the feature is turned off, I even changed the call froward to something I made up and she still can’t call me.
Any help?
July 26, 2012 at 1:49 pm, Dennis said:
My settings are differently set up. This might be a different version of the iPhone?
August 02, 2012 at 3:56 pm, sm said:
There is not a call forwArd option to pick from, only a call forward disable option
April 13, 2013 at 2:37 pm, DeLanna Forbes said:
I can not make the call forwarding stay turned on when I enter the number to forward to and click the call forwarding in the upper left corner. Can you please help me with this?
Thank You
DeLanna
April 13, 2013 at 2:47 pm, DeLanna Forbes said:
I can not make the call forwarding stay turned on after I enter the forward to number and tap the call forwarding in the upper left corner. It turns back off after I click back to call forwarding screen. Can you please help me with this?
Thank You
DeLanna