iPhone 13 / 13 Pro not getting text notifications? Fix

Is your iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro suddenly not ringing or making any sound when you receive an inbound message? Have you recently missed an important text because your iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro didn’t notify you? Wondering why you didn’t get an alert when someone recently texted you? No text or message notification coming in even from your favorites or in emergencies?

If so, you are not alone! Several users have reported their iPhone 13 has suddenly stop alerting them when new texts or messages arrive. Naturally, this issue causes a lot of trouble for folks, especially when missing those critical messages from family, friends, and workplaces.

See also: What To Do If iPhone 13 / 13 Pro Won’t Send Text Messages

It’s really frustrating when your iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro is not alerting you of texts! How it’s supposed to work: you receive any new message, your iPhone alerts you with a sound, an on-screen alert, and a vibration.

This process should work for all new incoming messages, whether it’s an iMessage or an SMS text. But if you find it’s not working as it should, and your iPhone 13 Pro not alerting you to new texts, we’ve got some tips to fix it quickly!

There are many reasons why your iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro may fail to receive text notifications, including problems with the cellular network or simple software oversights. Problems may only reveal themselves once they are fixed.

Follow these instructions to get your iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro receiving text notifications again.

Check Your iPhone Text Message Sound Effect & Select a Text Tone

Yup, sometimes it’s the easy things that fall through the cracks. So let’s make sure that you selected a tone for your incoming text messages!

Go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics > and scroll down to the section Sounds and Vibration Patterns. In this section, look for Text Tone.

If this says None, tap it and change the alert to something you like.

Use Your Text Tone Default!

Here is another quick solution, just change your text sound to the default and simple Ding or Note. Readers noticed problems with texts not consistently sounding alerts when using longer alert tones. So stick with the defaults!

To update, go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Text Tone and change to the default, listed in parenthesis such as Note (Default.)

Alerts Not Sounding For Just A Few Contacts? Look at your custom settings for each contact

Pull up one of the contacts that’s not alerting you (open either the Phone or Contacts app)
Tap Edit in the top right corner
Scroll down to Text Tone and look at the selected sound
If none is listed, tap and select a new Alert Tone from the list and tap Done

Look at Date & Time

It’s always good to check that our date and time are correct and ideally toggle on “Set Automatically.” If your iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro time is incorrect, this may explain why you aren’t getting notifications and alerts promptly.

A mismatch with your Date&Time can cause a whole host of problems. So let’s check it out. Go to Settings > General > Date & Time and toggle on Set Automatically. If this is already on, toggle it off, wait 20 seconds, and turn it back on again.

Check your Message app settings for Filtering Unknown Senders and Blocked Contacts

If you are not receiving texts from folks and businesses that aren’t in your Contacts app, you likely enabled the settings for Filter Unknown Senders. This feature automatically turns off notifications for messages from people and others who aren’t saved in your Contacts.

To change this setting, go to Settings > Messages > Unknown & Spam and turn off Filter Unknown Senders.

Take a look at your Blocked Contacts list

You may have inadvertently added someone to your blocked list.

If you blocked someone in FaceTime, iMessage, the Phone app, or in the Mail app, that block is active on all those apps. So when you block a phone number or contact, messages that are sent or received by that contact won’t be delivered. Blocked contacts can still leave a voicemail, but you won’t get a notification for that voicemail. And when you block an email address from Mail, it goes to the trash folder.

To look at your blocked contacts list, go to Settings > Messages. Under SMS/MMS, tap Blocked Contacts. Swipe to remove them from the blocked list.

You can also find this blocked contact list in the these apps:

• The Phone App. Go to Settings > Phone. Tap Blocked Contacts to see the list
• FaceTime. Go to Settings > FaceTime. Under Calls, tap Blocked Contacts
• The Mail App. Go to Settings > Mail. Under Threading, tap Blocked.

Update Notification Banners

Often, your new text notifications appear but disappear so quickly that you may just miss seeing them. Fortunately, there’s a way to change your text banners from temporary to persistent.

Persistent banners require you to take action before they disappear, while temporary banners go away after a short time on-screen. Both types appear at the top of your screen.

So if you’re missing notifications, try changing to persistent banners and see if this makes a difference. Go to Settings > Notifications > Messages and just below Show as Banners, tap on the icon for Persistent.

Confirm your selection by checking that the word Persistent is circled.

No Text or Message Notification on iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro? Check Do Not Disturb (DND)

First, check and see if you’ve accidentally (or purposefully) turned on Do Not Disturb. Go to Settings > Focus > Do Not Disturb and make sure it’s toggled OFF.

Check if you accidentally turned on Hide Alerts

Sometimes the crescent moon icon doesn’t even show up when DND is activated for a single contact, so it’s a good idea to check that contact, even if you don’t see the crescent moon.

Tap the Message thread and then tap on the name at the top. Edit the contact’s details by pressing the “i” and turn OFF Hide Alerts (or Do Not Disturb.)

Alternatively, if you already know which contacts’ texts are not alerting, tap on a message from the contact and press the “i” and toggle OFF Hide Alerts.

Look at Bluetooth

If you’ve recently connected to a Bluetooth device, sometimes that connection remains and iOS sends alerts to it rather than your iPhone.

To check, go to Settings > Bluetooth and check if any of your Bluetooth devices are connected and routing sound. If so, disconnect or unpair that Bluetooth device.

Alternatively, if you’re not currently using any Bluetooth device, disconnect devices by swiping up Control Center or turn Bluetooth off by going to Settings > Bluetooth > Off.

Paired with an Apple Watch?

If your iPhone pairs to an Apple Watch, by design your paired iPhone does not chime when a new text arrives. Instead, Apple routes your alerts to your Apple Watch, especially when the iPhone is locked.

As of now, there is no option to play a sound alert on BOTH your Apple Watch and your iPhone at the same time. It’s one or the other, based on the locked status of your phone.

The rule of thumb is if your phone is unlocked, notifications go to the iPhone. If your phone is locked, notifications go to your watch.

If you’re experiencing a problem with notifications not routing to your Apple Watch correctly, it’s best to unpair and then repair your Apple Watch to your iPhone.

Check Your Side or Ring/Volume (Mute) Switch

Take a look at your device’s silent switch button and toggle it OFF.

If your switch shows orange, it’s on. That means it’s in silent mode and vibrates for all alerts and incoming calls
When in silent mode, the alarms you set in the Clock app still sound and calls from Favorite contacts still ring.

Change What Sends & Receives

Go to Settings > Messages > Send & Receive. Look under the section: iMessage At Can reach you. If checked, deselect your email address. Select only your phone number and see if that solves the problem.

Turn Notifications ON

It’s common to turn notifications off inadvertently. So best to make sure they are indeed on. Check Settings > Notifications > Messages > Toggle ON Allow Notifications.

Next, make sure you choose an excellent alert sound. Go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Text Tones. And pick an alert sound that you like and that you’ll definitely hear.

No notifications or alerts when the phone is locked?

Not getting notified of messages coming in when iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro is locked? If you don’t see or hear any alerts when your iPhone 13 locks, enable the Show on Lock Screen setting.

Go to Settings > Notifications > Messages and verify that Show on Lock Screen is toggled on.

For sound alerts, also check that Settings > Notifications > Messages > Sounds has an alert type selected and does not display None unless that’s the setting you want.

Go to Settings > Face ID. Enter your passcode to validate access
Scroll down to Allow Access hen Locked
Toggle On Notification Center
And toggle on anything else you want to appear on your device’s Lock Screen.

Update Your iPhone to the Latest Version of iOS

It’s common for iOS updates to introduce new problems to your iPhone. In fact, previous iOS updates have been known to cause problems with text notifications not working on iPhone 13.

When this happens, Apple usually releases a new update in the next couple of weeks to fix it. Make sure you’re running the latest version of iOS so you benefit from Apple’s repair patches.

To update your iPhone software:

Connect your iPhone to a working Wi-Fi network.
Go to Settings > General > Software Update.
Wait for your iPhone to check for new software updates.
Download and install any available iOS updates.

Restart your iPhone

If nothing helped thus far, restart your iDevice by going to settings > General > Shut Down and sliding it off. Then turn on as usual.

If that doesn’t help, try a forced restart

Press and quickly release the Volume Up button. Then press and quickly release the Volume Down button. Finally, press and hold the Side button until you see the Apple logo
A forced restart is a hardware level restart of your device. It immediately cuts power and interrupts all processes. That means it clears what’s in the RAM, which in turn often fixes minor issues. And don’t worry, there’s no data loss–all your apps, games, photos, documents and login settings remain as is!

After performing a forced restart, make sure you check your Notification Settings to ensure everything is set-up as you want. Sometimes a forced reboot changes specific settings back to defaults. So the best insurance is to double or even triple check!

Reset Network Settings

. The iPhone Network Settings are a group of preferences that control how the phone accesses cellular networks. Errors in those settings could interfere with sending texts. To solve these problems, reset your Network Settings. You can do this by going to Settings > General > Transfer or reset iPhone > Reset > Reset Network Settings.

Don’t worry; this action DOES NOT impact your data, including apps, photos, documents, files, and so forth. It does wipe out any WiFi passwords, so write those down before you reset your network settings.

Reset all Settings

If none of the tips work for you, let’s try and reset all your iPhone settings. Don’t worry; this action DOES NOT impact your data.

But it does return all your personalized settings to defaults, meaning you need to re-enter things like passwords, Touch ID fingerprints, WiFi passcodes and so forth. So, yup, it’s very time-consuming, but many of our readers report it works.

Go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset All Settings

iPhone 13 not getting text notifications: Fixed

Hopefully, text notifications are working for new messages on your iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro. If so, let us know what fixed it in the comments!