Couple extra angles to check that @suenodelbosque didn’t hit directly:
-
Quick “am I blocked or just filtered” test
Grab someone you think you might’ve blocked and have them:- Call you
- Text you
Blocked: calls go straight to voicemail, and texts never show up at all.
Filtered: calls might still ring silently or go to voicemail, texts might land under “Unknown Senders” in Messages.
-
Check if you accidentally blocked via recent calls
A lot of “whoops I blocked them” happens from the Recents list in Phone:- Open Phone → Recents
- Look for the little circled “i” on the right
- Tap that on people you’re suspicious about
- Scroll down and see if it says “Unblock this Caller”
If it says “Unblock,” they’re in your blocked list even if you forgot doing it.
-
Cross check contact cards
If you blocked someone from their contact card, it can be easier to spot from there than from the global list:- Open Contacts
- Pick the person you’re missing calls/texts from
- Scroll down
- If you see “Unblock this Caller,” they’re blocked for all numbers on that card (including email for FaceTime/iMessage).
-
Multiple numbers for one person
iOS treats each phone/email entry separately, but the Contacts UI can be confusing:- If a person has 2 phone numbers and you only blocked one from Recents, only that specific number is blocked.
- In the blocked list, you might only see one number, while you’re expecting their whole name, so it’s easy to miss.
-
iMessage vs regular SMS weirdness
If the person uses iMessage and SMS:- Blocking hits both, but if they recently changed numbers or turned off iMessage, that new number might not be blocked, even if the old one is.
- Check both their old and new entries in your Recents / Messages threads.
So yeah, use the Blocked Contacts list like @suenodelbosque described, but also manually open the specific contact cards and Recents entries for the people you’re missing. Half the time the “mystery” is a single number on a contact being blocked while the rest looks fine.