How to Mute Dial Sounds on iPhone

Apr 3, 2018 - 18 Comments

How to mute dialing sounds on iPhone

iPhone users may wonder how they can mute the dialing sound effects that are played when a phone number is being dialed into the numeric keypad on an iPhone. Each time you press a number button on the phone keyboard, a new sound effect plays. Some of you may be thinking, that’s great and all but how do you turn off those sound effects when dialing a number, so that I can dial a number in silence from the iPhone?

It turns out there is a way to silence the audio sound effects when dialing phone numbers on an iPhone, read on to learn how to accomplish the task.

If you’re interested in some quick background, the sounds played while dialing a number on iPhone are actually the same as you’d hear on any other traditional touch tone DTMF phone, with each dialed number having a unique dial tone sound associated with it. While those numerical audio signals were necessary in the pre-cell phone era, nowadays the sound effects are no longer needed to simply dial a number successfully, but the sound effects persist even on modern smart phones like an iPhone. It’s a historical artifact of dialing numbers that many users like, and for many people there is a strong recognition for the sounds and dialing numbers, where you can often tell a number is being entered wrong simply by hearing it incorrectly. Anyway, some people may want to just dial a phone number on their iPhone in silence without the dialing tones being played out loud, so that’s what we’re going to focus on here.

How do you turn off dialing sounds on iPhone when dialing a phone number?

There are a few different ways to mute the playing of dialing sound effects when entering a phone number onto iPhone. We’ll cover the two simplest methods to silencing the keypad tone sounds; using the mute switch, and using headphones.

Quick Note: turning off keyboard clicks and keyboard sound effects on the iPhone and iPad currently won’t disable the dialing sound effects, as the phone dialing sounds are technically not a keyboard sound effect.

1: Turn Off Dialing Sounds by Muting the iPhone

The first approach to silencing the iPhone dialing sound effects is to simply mute the iPhone. This is easy, because all iPhone devices have a hardware mute switch on the side of each model, next to the volume buttons.

iPhone mute switch

Simply look at the side of the iPhone and find the little Mute switch and activate it. Flip it on, so that you can see a little red indicator, when that red indicator in the mute switch is visible it means the Mute button is active and the iPhone is muted for all sounds, including the muting of the dialing sounds.

Just remember to toggle the Mute button switch back off again if you don’t want to keep the iPhone in silent mode, because everything on the iPhone will not produce sound if the Mute button is enabled and instead the device will just vibrate. This includes all audio, whether it’s incoming phone call ringtones, text message alert sounds, alert sounds, external music, the camera sound, and any audio or video coming out of videos or apps. The mute button is all encompassing on iPhone, which is why it works to turn off the dialing sounds too, as long as that mute switch is enabled.

2: Silence External Dialing Sound Effects on iPhone by Using Headphones

If you use headphones, or have any plugged into the iPhone, then dialing in the Phone app will not make external sounds through the iPhone speakers, instead they will play the dial sounds through the headphones, earbuds, or Airpods.

You can also plug in a set of headphones to the iPhone and not even use them simply to accomplish the silencing of the dialing sounds.

This isn’t technically muting the sound effect or turning them off, it simply redirects the sound effects when dialing through the audio output of the headphone jack, or the Lightning port if your iPhone is courageous without a headphone port.

Whether or not it’s easier for you to mute the dialing sounds on an iPhone by using the Mute button or by using headphones is entirely up to you and how you use your device, but for most users the Mute switch is probably the best approach.

As mentioned earlier, there is no setting for disabling or turning off the dial sound effects on iPhone. But it’s always possible that future iOS releases will include a toggle setting for silencing the dial tone sounds on an iPhone as some kind of option, or maybe even do away with them completely.

Personally I like the sound effects when dialing a number, but I am also one of those geeks that digs up DTMF tones buried on their Mac and plays around with them because, well, I’m a geek and that’s the type of thing I find to be interesting. But anytime I don’t want the iPhone to make a sound when dialing I just toggle the mute switch, but every user is different. Just use what works for you.


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Posted by: Paul Horowitz in iPhone, Tips & Tricks, Troubleshooting


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  1. Tosha says:

    You are right I hate my new phone I spent $300 on this gadget… I should be able to turn off the dialing sound when I want my Android because it was easier to use also easier to set up! It should be the other way around this phone should be easier to set up because of the price.

  2. Momma Tina says:

    Sherry I’m glad you let that CAPTAIN know that we are not looking to mute all sounds on our phone just the dial out keypad!
    Looks like someone can not comprehend although he seems to think we can’t read!

  3. George Hayward says:

    Well, how is that for a POS that you pay hundreds of dollars for – there is no way to turn off this stupid sound? I am ditching this Chinese crap for a Korean made crap, Android.

  4. James dilligaf says:

    That’s why android is better they have sense to add this turnoff feature in the settings. Also try getting an I phone to block unknown callers with no Id . Sorry not a simple feature that is not included in I phones. androids are better . Just my opinion

  5. sophie says:

    It’s 2019, and to disable annoying DTMF sounds, we have only two option:
    * plug in headphones
    * enable a hardware mute button on the side.

    I still have my iphone 4S, but the above is why I’m still on Android. I’ll be back when Apple can figure out basic functionality.


  6. Marianne says:

    I agree with Sherry. Why is it that turning off Settings>Sounds>Keyboard Clicks doesn’t turn off the the Phone keyboard dial? It should be a required safety feature if someone is in a dangerous situation, and users should be able to dial without having to systematically switch the mute button.

  7. Tiago says:

    So you don’t actually know a solution for this?

    Apple is completely nuts. Have they tested this with actual users? Because, as far as I can tell, the vast majority of users don’t want that freaking dialling sound when pressing keys.

    • trolololol says:

      Hi Tiago I just came here too and I found out a great fact; you can mute the dial sounds on an iPhone with ease! I actually found detailed thorough instructions with multiple solutions for how you can mute the dial sounds on an iPhone. Here it is Tiago!!!

      If you read that article you will find out how to mute the dialing sounds when pressing keys to call a number on the iPhone.

      I just successfully muted my dial sounds by following the instructions, confirming that it works! But here’s a big catch that may make it difficult, it does require ‘reading’ however! I believe in you!

      • CAPTAIN NO says:

        Flip the mute switch on the iPhone, it will mute the dialing sounds on the iPhone.

        It’s not complicated people. Do any of you commenters bother to read or do you just jump straight to the comments to display your ignorance? No wonder the world is a mess, just look at how people can’t figure out how to use a mute switch on their phone.

        • Sherry says:

          Dear Captain No. I am not ignorant, I want my dial tones off forever. Sometimes my ear or cheek make the dial tones go off while I’m having a conversation. So using the mute option is not an option. Must you assume that you are the smartest person on the earth?

        • Lorrie says:

          Captain No and Trolololol: Tiago makes a great point. Turning the Mute switch on, making a call to avoid the dialing sounds, then forgetting to turn the Mute switch off, might mean missing calls/notifications, etc. The article clearly states this: “Just remember to toggle the Mute switch back on again….”
          There is no indication on the home screen that the phone has been silenced, yet it would seem relatively easy to have a silent alarm icon trigger at the top of the screen so the user is aware of the Mute setting. The Samsung phones I have had all had that setting (it is a ringer bell with a line drawn through it to indicate sound is muted) when the sounds are silenced (i.e. muted via sound toggle switch). Moreover, Samsung allows dialing sounds silencing in the sound settings, which can be set individually for text keyboard sounds, call dialing sounds, etc.

  8. Jan says:

    If I need to dial 911 in an intruder situation, I don’t want my phone to beep with each push of a button. If I am not in a panick, I guess I can turn the mute on the side of the phone. But if someone is in my house, I might not be too calm. For safety reasons, why wouldn’t there be a way to turn off the phone keys like the keyboard strokes?

  9. Mike says:

    One correction: the mute switch is not quite all-encompassing. Thankfully, alarms still sound. That means you can mute the phone for the night and still get woken up in the morning.

  10. Staffan says:

    My first reaction to this article was happiness – at last you can turn these annoying button sound off. But when I read I understand that it’s the same old story – You cannot turn of this sound! The solution mentioned in the article is the same as for several years ago. Please Apple make the sound turnofable!

  11. no way says:

    It appears your phone is possed. It was probably owend by an angry Diva’s boyfriend.

  12. Michael lim says:

    Sometimes during switching on of iPhone 6+ it will automatically self dial my phone number. Any one encounter this problem before?

  13. alun says:

    Gosh, I must be getting really old. When you wrote ‘dial sounds’ what appeared in my mind was ‘dial sounds’ – the sound of a rotary dial telephone. I had never heard an iPhone making a rotary dial sound so was momentarily confused. DTMF is keypad sounds- do you guys say dial the number of key the number or just call or ring the number?


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