How to Show Missed Calls on the iPhone Lock Screen

You pick up your iPhone, the Lock Screen is empty, and only later do you find out someone called. When missed calls never show up there, the Phone app’s notifications are usually switched off for the Lock Screen, or a Focus such as Do Not Disturb is hiding them. On current versions of iOS, the fix starts in Settings > Notifications > Phone, where the Lock Screen alert lives.

Turn on missed call alerts for the Lock Screen

1. Open the Settings app.
   

   

2. Tap Notifications.
   

   

3. Scroll to the list of apps below Notification Style and tap Phone.
   

   

4. Turn on Allow Notifications.
5. Under Alerts, make sure Lock Screen is selected. Select Notification Center too, so the alert stays in the list after you open the phone, and Banners if you want to see the alert while you are using the iPhone.
   

   

6. Check Notification Delivery and choose Immediate Delivery. If Phone is set to Scheduled Summary, missed calls wait for the next summary instead of appearing right away. On iPhone models that support Apple Intelligence, notification summaries can also condense alerts; Apple explains them on its page about summarizing notifications with Apple Intelligence.

Lock your iPhone and ask someone to call you without answering. A missed call alert should appear on the Lock Screen after the call ends.

Choose how much the alert shows

Once alerts are on, a few settings control whether you see a full “Missed Call” line with the caller’s name or just a small number.

• Lock Screen layout. In Settings > Notifications, Apple offers Count, Stack and List. Count shows only a number at the bottom of the screen, which is easy to overlook. List shows each notification in full, which makes missed calls hard to miss.
• Show Previews. The choices are Always, When Unlocked and Never. With When Unlocked, the Lock Screen shows an alert but may hide who called. To keep caller details private on purpose, see how to limit notification previews on iPhone.
• Badges. Leave Badges on for Phone if you want the red number on the app icon as a backup reminder. If you are not sure what that number means, read what badges on iPhone are.

Where to find calls you already missed

Lock Screen alerts disappear once you open or clear them, so it helps to know the two other places missed calls are kept.

• Notification Center. On the Lock Screen, swipe up from the middle of the screen to see older notifications. If nothing appears, go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode (or Touch ID & Passcode) and turn on Notification Center under Allow Access When Locked.
• The Phone app. Open Phone and go to Calls (or Recents if you use the Classic layout). Tap the filter button and choose Missed. The same filter has Unknown Callers and Spam lists, where screened calls end up.

If missed calls still do not appear

Work down this list in order; the first two cover most cases.

1. Check for a Focus. Do Not Disturb, Sleep and other Focus modes silence notifications, including missed calls, unless the caller is allowed. Open Control Center and see if a Focus is on. To let certain people through, go to Settings > Focus, choose the Focus, and adjust People. A Focus can also be set to allow repeated calls, which Apple defines as two or more calls from the same person within three minutes. These steps to find and turn off Do Not Disturb cover the rest, including Focus schedules that switch on by themselves.
2. Look at Call Screening. In Settings > Apps > Phone, the Call Screening options are Never, Ask Reason for Calling and Silence, as described on Apple’s page about screening and blocking calls. With Silence, calls from numbers not in your contacts do not ring, and they land in the Unknown Callers list instead of producing a normal alert. Older iOS versions called a similar switch Silence Unknown Callers, covered in this walkthrough to silence unknown callers.
3. Check Blocked Contacts. If one person’s calls never show, look in Settings > Apps > Phone > Blocked Contacts. Tap Edit to unblock them.
4. Check call-blocking apps. Apps listed under Call Blocking & Identification in Phone settings can filter calls before they reach you.
5. Turn off Airplane Mode. With Airplane Mode on, calls do not reach the iPhone at all, so there is nothing to alert you about. Check Control Center.
6. Restart and update. Restart the iPhone, then check Settings > General > Software Update.
7. Reset all settings as a last resort. Go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset All Settings. This returns settings such as notifications and network settings to their defaults but does not delete your data, so you will need to set them up again.

On older versions of iOS

Very old releases, such as the iOS 10 shown in the screenshots above, had a single Show on Lock Screen switch on the Phone notifications page, and missed calls sat under a Missed tab in Recents. If your iPhone still shows that switch, turn it on; the rest of the advice here still applies.

That list also controls whether your cards can come up, so see how to stop Apple Wallet appearing on a locked iPhone.

Missed call notification questions

Why does the alert show a number instead of a name?

The caller is probably not saved in Contacts, or is saved under a different number. Add the number to the contact card and future alerts will show the name.

Can I stop spam calls from cluttering the Lock Screen?

Yes. Call Screening set to Silence keeps unknown numbers out of the ringing and alert flow, and you can block repeat offenders with these steps to block a call on iPhone.

Why do missed calls appear in the Phone app but not on the Lock Screen?

The call was logged, but the alert was held back. Lock Screen not selected under Alerts, a Focus, Scheduled Summary or Call Screening are the usual causes, in roughly that order.

Once the alert works, set the Lock Screen layout to List for a few days to make sure no call slips by unnoticed.

Kermit Matthews

Kermit Matthews runs Live2Tech from just outside Philadelphia. He is an IT specialist with over 20 years of experience, from a university help desk to small-business IT, IT management and his own consulting practice, and has written tech guides full time since 2020. Steps are checked against the current software on a real device or the maker’s official documentation. More about Kermit.