How to Prevent FaceTime Calls Going to All Devices

Father and daughters waving video chatting using digital tablet
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by Daniel Nations
Daniel Nations has been a tech journalist since 1994. His work has appeared in Computer Currents, The Examiner, The Spruce, and other publications.
Updated September 26, 2018

The iPad is a great device for FaceTime calls, but that doesn't mean you want every call from every phone number and email address associated with your account to be received on your iPad. For multi-device families that are all linked to the same Apple ID, it can be confusing for the devices to ring with every FaceTime call, but it's actually very simple to limit which devices ring for which accounts.

How to Adjust FaceTime Settings

  1. Go into the iPad's settings. This is the app that looks like gears turning. (A quick way to find it is with Spotlight Search.)

  2. In Settings, scroll down the left-side menu and tap on FaceTime. This will bring up the FaceTime settings.

  3. Once you are in the FaceTime settings, simply tap to remove the check mark next to any phone number or email address you don't want to receive FaceTime calls for and tap to add a check mark for any that you want to be active. You can also add a new email address to the list.

The "Blocked" button will show you a list of all email addresses and phone numbers you have blocked from FaceTime. These are the callers that won't ever ring on your iPad. You can add an email or phone number to this list, and if you click on Edit in the top-right corner, you can also delete from the list.