When you block a number, your phone quietly cuts off most ways that person can reach you, usually without telling them what happened.

What blocking a number usually does

  • Incoming calls from the blocked number are rejected by your phone, so your device will not ring.
  • On many phones, especially iPhones and newer Androids, blocked calls go straight to voicemail or are just auto‑rejected in the background.
  • Text messages (SMS/iMessage) from that number are not delivered to your inbox; they effectively disappear on your side.
  • The person you blocked does not get a clear alert that they were blocked; from their perspective, it can look like calls aren’t going through or messages are being ignored.
  • You can still call or text the blocked number yourself; blocking is one‑way and only stops them from contacting you, not the other way around.

What you might still see

  • On some phones, voicemails from blocked numbers are stored in a separate “Blocked Messages” or similar folder in voicemail, without notifications.
  • Your previous call and text history with that contact usually stays on your phone unless you manually delete it.

Device and app differences

  • iPhone: Blocked calls typically go straight to voicemail; texts, iMessages, and FaceTime from that number are silently blocked, and the sender is not informed.
  • Android: Calls from a blocked number often go straight to voicemail or get auto‑declined; texts can be filtered out by the phone or messaging app and never shown to you.
  • Messaging/calling apps (WhatsApp, etc.) have their own blocking systems, so blocking a phone number at system level does not automatically block them in every app. You usually have to block them separately inside each app.

From the blocker’s point of view

  • You stop seeing calls, texts, and most direct contact attempts from that number, which reduces spam, harassment, or just unwanted contact.
  • You can unblock the number at any time; there’s no limit to how often you can block and unblock someone.

From the other person’s point of view

  • Calls may ring once or a few times then drop to voicemail, or jump straight to voicemail, depending on carrier and device.
  • Texts appear to send normally on their phone, but never arrive on yours; they don’t usually get “blocked” or “failed” warnings.
  • Because there’s no explicit “you’ve been blocked” message, they can only guess based on patterns like constant call failures or no replies.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.