You’ve probably seen the crescent moon on your iPhone status bar or in your Messages app. It’s the symbol for Do Not Disturb, which stops incoming calls and notifications from apps.

But it also appears next to text conversations that you’ve muted. It’s not the same as hiding alerts, but it can help you stay focused on important matters without a never-ending stream of pings and buzzes.

Do Not Disturb

Do Not Disturb is an iOS feature that prevents notifications from pinging your screen, making noise, or even appearing on the lock screen. The mode is useful for when you need to focus on something important – like a meeting, dinner, or watching a movie. It can be enabled from the Control Center, or you can schedule it to run on a recurring basis, such as when you’re going to bed.

Do Not Disturb can also be configured to silence all calls, text messages, and notifications for a certain period of time. It’s especially useful for people who want to get away from their phones while sleeping or during meetings.

You can also choose to allow specific apps, such as Slack if you’re working on a time-sensitive project, or gas apps if you’re driving on a road trip. You can even add exceptions for specific contacts, so that they’ll still receive a notification or message while Do Not Disturb is active.

One of the biggest frustrations for people using Do Not Disturb is missing phone calls and texts. iOS has an easy solution to this problem – it’s called Emergency Bypass.

This is where you turn on a toggle switch that allows people to call you while Do Not Disturb is activated. This is particularly helpful if someone has your number in their phonebook and they have an urgent message or call waiting for you.

However, if you are worried about the person you are calling being able to reach you in an emergency, you can disable this option by tapping on the “Allowed during Do not disturb” box and choosing the option to mute all calls and messages from that particular contact.

You can also set Do Not Disturb to automatically activate at a specified time each day, which is great if you know you need to be quiet for a certain period of time, such as when you’re going to sleep or during mealtimes. To do this, open the Settings app and tap on “Focus.” In the Focus section of the menu, click the “Do Not Disturb” button. In the next screen, tap the “Scheduled” option to set a time frame and then toggle it on.

Hide Alerts

Hide Alerts is a useful feature on the iPhone that can help you manage your notification alerts and avoid getting distracted by unwanted notifications. Whether you’re trying to hide an iMessage conversation from your partner or simply don’t want certain messages popping up on your screen, this feature can help.

The Hide Alerts option is available in all versions of iOS, including the latest ones. To mute alerts, simply swipe left on the text message conversation that you want to hide them for. You can also mute notifications by tapping the purple bell icon with a line through it, which will show you an options menu on the right side of your screen.

Another way to hide alerts is by using message filtering. This feature will automatically display only new messages that have been received by the person you’re hiding them for, while displaying all other texts in chronological order.

This method is especially helpful if you’re hiding an entire message chain from your contact or group chat, such as a birthday or holiday message that might have been forgotten about by the sender. Once you’ve hidden a message, it won’t appear in your notifications anymore but you will still receive the text message if the other person replies to it.

You can also hide messages from a particular contact by turning on their Do Not Disturb mode. This will make them invisible to you and any other contacts that are in the same conversation, but will prevent your phone from ringing or vibrating when they call.

However, if you want to hide messages from a specific contact, it may be more beneficial to try out a different option. One method is to use the Filter Unknown Senders setting in Settings, which will separate your messaging between messages sent from your contacts and those that are sent from people you don’t know.

This option can be very handy when you’re dealing with a busy schedule or a lot of other things on your mind. It’s also a good way to avoid receiving any unnecessary notifications or messages that could be distracting, such as a message about a job interview or a work-related event.

Blue Crescent Moon

The crescent moon symbol on your iPhone messages can mean a number of things. It may represent a message you’ve muted, or it may indicate that you’ve enabled Do Not Disturb mode for the conversation. It can also be a sign that someone has updated their GPS map.

It’s important to know what this icon means so you can remove it when it’s no longer helpful. You can do this easily using one of the following methods:

1. Access Control Center and tap on “Hide Alerts.”

2. Open any text message conversation that displays the crescent moon icon.

3. Select the conversation and tap on the “(i)” button in the upper-right corner to open details.

4. From here, toggle the “Hide Alerts” option off.

5. You can also disable the half moon icon on any other chat, from here too.

6. Depending on your iOS version, you can remove the half moon icon by opening up details or by tapping and holding the conversation until it pauses.

7. Once you’ve done this, the half moon icon should disappear.

8. In addition, the half moon on your iPhone may also show up in the list view of a conversation thread in Messages.

Often this symbol will appear next to any thread with Do Not Disturb mode activated, but it can be difficult to determine whether or not the half moon is active on all threads.

If you want to see a half moon on all of your conversations, head into the settings app and turn on Do Not Disturb mode. You can also turn this feature on manually by accessing the control center and swiping down on your screen to reveal the DND setting.

However, you can also disable Do Not Disturb automatically by going into Settings -> Do Not Disturb and turning off the toggle for Scheduled. This will immediately remove the crescent moon symbol on your status bar and stop it from displaying in the Messages app as well.

Gray Crescent Moon

If you have the half-moon icon on your iPhone, it is likely that you have turned on Do Not Disturb mode. This feature allows you to silence incoming alerts on a system-wide basis or a contact-by-contact basis.

You might notice the half-moon icon clinging to your status bar at the top of your home screen, or it may only appear next to certain text messages on your device. The former means you have turned on Do Not Disturb, while the latter indicates that the feature is disabled for a specific conversation or group of conversations.

The half-moon is a common symbol found throughout the world, and it symbolizes changing seasons and the ebb and flow of nature’s cycles. It’s also a sign of fertility, and it is commonly used in kabbalistic belief.

In iOS, the half-moon shows up in blue or gray when it’s a sign that a chat hasn’t been opened yet or the recipient hasn’t viewed your message. A blue moon is a sign that the recipient hasn’t received your message, but a gray one tells you that the person has viewed it.

To turn off Do Not Disturb on your device, pull up the control center or access the settings menu. Then, toggle off “Do Not Disturb” (iOS 10 and earlier) or “Hide Alerts” (iOS 11 and later).

Alternatively, you can disable Do Not Disturb on a contact-by-contact basis, which is the most effective way to turn off the feature. To do this, open the Messages app and tap on the details button or i enclosed in a circle of an open chat.

Once you’ve selected the desired chat, press and hold the i or details button until the option to turn off Do Not Disturb or Hide Alerts appears. Once you’ve turned off Do Not Disturb or Hide alerts, the half-moon will disappear and you’ll no longer see it in your Messages app.

The half-moon on your iPhone is a sign that the person you’re talking to has muted the conversation with you, which means they won’t receive notification notifications about new messages from you. However, this setting is reversible and can be unmuted at any time.