Spam calls should be a past concern, but unfortunately they are still a plague that many of us deal with. Services like Truecaller have helped with caller ID and spam filtering for years. But since Android and iOS have become great at handling spam calls on their own, there’s no need to rely on a third-party app (let alone pay for a subscription) to prevent spam calls. In addition to your phone’s features, your carrier may offer its own spam protection features. Depending on the company, they may be enabled by default. Otherwise, check your online account or carrier app to toggle spam protection. Filter spam calls on iPhone If you have an iPhone, navigate to Settings > Apps > Phone. The most important option is found in the Call Filtering section; Enable Spam and calls that your operator identifies as spam will not ring. They will automatically be sent to voicemail and, in the Calls tab of the Phone application, they will appear in the Spam section (accessible from the top right button). To keep your call logs even more organized, enable the Unknown Calls option in the same Settings box. With this, recent calls from non-contacts appear in the Unknown Callers section (available via the top right button mentioned in the Phone app). Use Mark as Known to remove a given number from this section if necessary. Back on the Settings page, check the Unknown Callers Screen section, where you have three options. It is never the default, where every incoming call rings normally. The most aggressive approach is Silence, which silences all incoming calls from numbers not saved in your contacts and sends them to voicemail. You can view these silenced calls in the same Calls tab of the Phone app. Asking the reason for the call is a good middle ground; With this, your iPhone will detect unknown callers and ask them why they are calling. You can see a live transcript of the caller’s response on your screen and decide if the call is worth answering. Call detection is only available in select countries on iPhones running iOS 26 or later. While you probably already have friends and family saved in your contacts, be sure to save any other numbers that contact you regularly, like doctors’ offices or work clients. These options are great for shutting up spammers, but you’ll have to be a little more vigilant to avoid missing legitimate calls from unsaved numbers.
