My buddy Eddy asked me a funny question the other night. He said, “Ryan, what are some ways to know if someone blocked you on iPhone?” Well, I was like—Eddy, what’s going on? Did a girl block you or something? What did you do? Haha! I kind of started laughing… but of course, it probably wasn’t a funny situation to my friend.
I’ve had some unfortunate experience about this situation and so I can tell you exactly what to do.
First, my experience with getting blocked on an iPhone…
How to know if someone blocked you on iPhone—well, well, well… If you’re in this situation then, I have to tell you that I’ve had a lot of experience with this. And it’s quite unfortunate!
Here was the situation for me. I was dating someone who was not the greatest person to be with. A lot of manipulation. And a lot of difficulty was going on in the relationship.
I’d say it was a lot of game playing! Well, it concluded to game playing that was occurring in the relationship through text messaging and more.
She blocked me! But I absolutely needed to know if she did or not. So I used Google Voice and free online text messaging techniques to do this. But, I have to say—it is somewhat illegal to do this. It could be considered harassment. Yes, it could!
So before you go ahead and do any of these techniques in the list below—consider what it is that you’re doing.
LegalExplanations.com says, “harassment is illegal no matter what format it occurs in, including in person, through social media, and even through phone calls or text messages.”
BE CAREFUL and THINK BEFORE you go ahead and send those messages…
Ways to tell if he/she blocked you on an iPhone
Here’s how to tell if someone blocked you on an iPhone:
1. Send a text and see if it gets delivered (BEST METHOD!)
Usually, an iMessage will have a blue text bubble around it. When your historical messages have always been blue but then go green—this might be a sign that she’s blocked you.
It usually won’t say “delivered” right under the text bubble, either.
In this image, you can see that it says “Delivered” right near the message thread. This would indicate that the person DID NOT block you. But you see the bubble appear in the chat thread but you DON’T SEE the “Delivered” message on the bottom right—then you’re blocked!
2. Try to give them a call—it’ll go straight to voicemail
Unfortunately, sometimes you’ll have to give someone a call to see if they blocked you. When someone has blocked you on their iPhone—you’ll go directly to voicemail.
The way to tell if this has happened is when you call: it just goes straight to voicemail. There should be absolutely ZERO ring to the call.
Don’t even worry about leaving a voicemail because it won’t really matter anyway!
3. Have a friend give them a text and see if it’s blue or green or delivered
If you really want to know what’s going on you can do a couple of things:
Ask a friend to text them and see if it’s blue or green
Your friend might send them a text and if it’s green—then that means that they have Do Not Disturb on and that you won’t be able to get through it unless they allow you through using Emergency Bypass.
Potentially, they are blocked, too
In some bad relationship situations—friends might get immediately blocked. So if THEY don’t see a “Delivered” message, then the person is really going through all of the connected relationships with you and deciding they don’t want it!
4. Send a text through a free texting service
A service like TextFree.com will let you get through to them. But you’ll have to use a little bit of manipulation and this can be a bit much! But if you REALLY need to know—then give them a text through the service and say something like this:
“Hey [Their Name], what’s up?”
And see if they respond. The fact that you use THEIR name—then there’s a good chance they’ll respond.
5. Send a text through Google voice
You can create a temporary phone number through Google Voice for both a text message or phone call. And then you can do the same as the above—you can give them a call and see if the phone rings before it goes to voicemail.
Or you can see if the text message gets delivered.
You don’t have to have a specific text in mind if you’re going to do this method. Because you’ll be comparing against a message that you’ve already sent them.
6. See if he or she just got you on “Do Not Disturb”
The only way to really tell if he or she has “Do Not Disturb” on is to see whether it changes over time. Basically, to do this method, just give it a day or so. Maybe he or she will turn it off.
And when they do—you can just text them or call them again. And if you get through, then it means that they didn’t block you but that they just put you on a “little break.”
7. Wait out the situation and then text again
Same as the situation above—the person might temporarily block you just to close out a conversation that’s going wrong. If that’s happening to you—the best way to tell that they unblocked you is just to give it time and come back to the situation again.
Try next to send a message that’ll spark anger in the situation again.
8. Make a call but us *67 to mask your phone number
You can mask your phone number by using *67 before you make a phone call. You’re going to have to use the full phone number of the person that you’re trying to reach out to. You won’t be able to do this by going into your contacts.
Here is what it should generally look like on your phone:
9. Undo “Show My Caller ID”
If there’s a situation where the person just isn’t picking up because they know it’s you, then you can undo “Show My Caller ID” on the iPhone.
To do this, you’re going to follow these instructions:
- Go into “Settings”
- Then go into “Phone”
- And then tap “Show My Caller ID”
- And then untoggle “Show My Caller ID”
If you’re still having trouble try following this short guide. The end result is that it will just say “No Called ID” when the phone call is coming through. It won’t guarantee that the person picks up the phone—but it will help to determine whether they blocked you or not!
10. Check social media and see if you’re blocked there, too
A good way to tell if someone blocked you is to check social media channels like Instagram/Snapchat/Facebook and more. If they’re not happy with you—there’s a good chance that they went ahead and did some “rage blocking” around all channels.
Just pop open your social media channels and see if you can go to their profile.
Here are some ways to tell if someone blocked you on Instagram.
11. Try to use emergency mode and get through
If they have you as an Emergency Mode contact, then you might still be able to get through. All you’ll have to do is just give them a phone call.
You should be able to get through, then.
12. Respect the persons boundaries
Lastly, this is an important step—maybe it’s just time to let this person have their boundaries that they’ve set with you. They clearly don’t want to talk to you and if it’s a relationship (I’d say the most common scenario where this occurs) then maybe it’s just time to let it go.
Take a step away from the situation and see what happens.
Inside this article
Fact checked:
Board reviewed by Marianne Tomlinson, LCSW (Couples and Family Therapy). Content is rigorously reviewed by a team of qualified and experienced fact checkers. Learn more.
