How To Forward Unanswered Calls on the iPhone

Usually when you’re not in a position to answer a call, it is automatically forwarded on to voicemail. That’s great if that setup works for you but what if you’re at work or in a place where mobiles aren’t allowed? Can you forward calls somewhere else? Yes you can. This tutorial will show you how to forward unanswered calls on the iPhone.

The process is called Conditional Call Forwarding on the iPhone and is triggered by a setting on your phone. You can have it trigger when a call is unanswered, when the line is busy or when you are unreachable.

Call forwarding is a valuable feature of any service that can make sure you never miss an important call. Whether you’re in business, waiting for notification of something, waiting to hear back about a job or something else, when voicemail just won’t do, call forwarding is where you turn. I use it all the time and I know a lot of people who do the same.

Not all carriers use Apple’s built-in forwarding so I find it easier to use the star code. This is universal and will work anywhere in the country, on just about any carrier. I’ll show you the other way afterwards.

Network star codes

I use network star codes for forwarding as they will work on most carriers. I use *61, *62 and *67 as they work for my mobile provider. If you find they don’t work for you, find out what codes your network works with and switch to that. These codes are supposed to be universal but that doesn’t always mean what we think it means.

Forward unanswered calls on the iPhone

Call forwarding on an iPhone is very basic. It’s a simple on-off setting with the ability to configure the number you forward to.

1. Open the phone app on your iPhone.
2. Select the keypad and enter *61* and the phone number you’re forwarding to then hash.
3. Press Dial and wait for the confirmation.

For example, you would enter ‘*61*123555123456#’ to forward calls to 123555123456. The *61* is the network command for call forwarding when unanswered. The phone number is self-explanatory and the hash is to tell the network you completed the number.

To turn off forwarding, enter #61# in your phone app and dial. Wait for the confirmation.

Forward calls on the iPhone when the line is busy

If you want to forward calls only when the line is already busy and don’t want to use call waiting, you can. It uses a very similar process to the above https://www.novodasoftware.com/but with a different star code.

1. Open the phone app on your iPhone.
2. Select the keypad and enter *67* and the phone number you’re forwarding to then hash.
3. Press Dial and wait for the confirmation.

As you can see, this time you dial *67* instead of *61*. The rest of the number and the ending hash is exactly the same. *67* is the network code for forward when busy and will do exactly that. It will override call waiting and forward incoming calls to the number you enter if you’re already on the phone.

To turn off forwarding when busy, enter #67# in your phone app and dial. Wait for the confirmation and you’re done.

Forward unanswered calls when the iPhone is unreachable

Your final forwarding option is to forward calls to a different number when your iPhone is either turned off or out of cell range. If the network cannot ping your phone for some reason, instead of aborting the call and telling the caller you’re not available, it will forward the call to another number.

1. Open the phone app on your iPhone.
2. Select the keypad and enter *62* and the phone number you’re forwarding to then hash.
3. Press Dial and wait for the confirmation.

Again, the same process as above but this time using *62* instead of the other two codes. This is the network code for forwarding unreachable cell phones.

To turn off forwarding when unreachable just enter #62# in your phone app and dial.

Use Call forwarding in iOS

iOS does have a call forwarding feature built in but not all telephone networks are compatible with it. The main ones are but apparently smaller carriers are not which is why the star code works best. If you know your cell network is compatible, you could just try this:

1. Open Settings on your iPhone.
2. Select Call forwarding and toggle it to on.
3. Enter the number you want calls forwarded to in the next window.

You should now see a small phone icon with an arrow next to it. This tells you forwarding is enabled. Just repeat the above and toggle the setting off when you’re done.