iPhone: Enable or disable call forwarding

Contributor Icon Contributed by qmchenry Date Icon June 30, 2007  
Tag Icon Tagged: 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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  • Surekha
    Your comments and screenshots have been helpful for me to get thisfeature setup. Thanks for posting this info
  • Steve Jobs
    Apparently you've never used Windows Mobile circa 2002.
  • Adrian
    You are so right Steve! What's with Apple not having call forward busy, no answer and out of range diversions as well?
  • Randy
    If there was a way to auto call forward when charging, that would be great.
  • biijansen
    Its good..but if you dont seem to able to store multiple numbers ...however it certainly does the job
  • Jesper
    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)
  • skube
    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.
  • fredfogg
    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
  • Misty
    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!
  • bthe boy
    my slide thingy doesnt work and 'call forwarding'is grey not black
  • the boy
    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
  • I need to forward only certain incoming numbers not everything. That would be cool. Is there a third party app that would allow this?
  • We barker
    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
  • monts
    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.
  • Hey thanks for posting this - pretty simple feature on the iPhone but I just didn't know it existed!
    @JeremyTuber
  • Saleem
    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.
  • 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...
  • oldteacher
    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??
  • thomasz
    Thanks for your posting, iPhone is a business phone
  • Joe
    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.
  • robthedisappointed
    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.
  • jusejamez
    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# <--the last pound (lbs.)
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