That's my phone, I don't know you

Smartphones can do just about anything these days — did you know they can even make phone calls? You've probably gotten your fair share of spam calls in the last few years, and many carriers are actively working to prevent spam and "robocalls" from happening, but some people don't want to receive calls at all. Whether you use VoIP services, carry a work phone that only needs access to data, or you prefer texting over calling, here's how you can quickly disable all incoming calls from ringing your phone.

Phone used in this guide

• Extra-tall phone: Sony Xperia 1 ($900 at Amazon)

How to disable incoming calls

Disabling all incoming calls is easier than you might think. There's no need to fuss with questionable third-party apps or sit on hold with your carrier to ask for manual call barring. In most cases, it's as simple as tapping through a few menu screens.

1. Open the Phone app.
2. Tap the menu overflow button (three dots) in the upper righthand corner.
3. Tap Settings.

4. Tap Calls.

   

5. Within Call Settings, tap Call Barring.
6. Tap All Incoming (which should initially say "Disabled").
7. Enter the call barring password. In most cases, this will be either 0000 or 1234.
8. Tap Turn On.

Once you've entered your the correct call barring password, your phone will take a moment to process before showing "Enabled" under the All Incoming option, confirming you've successfully blocked incoming calls. If you don't know your call barring password, don't worry. It's typically a simple string of numbers like 0000, 1234, or 1111, but if none of those work, ring up your carrier's customer service line.

The process is the same on most phones

The process of blocking incoming calls should be roughly the same on any modern Android phone, but for an experience that most closely matches that of this guide, you'll want a phone that runs on a stock or close-to-stock build of Android 9 Pie. I've been using the Xperia 1 for the last few months, but anything from a Pixel 3 to a OnePlus 7 Pro will look nearly identical.

Extra-tall phone

Sony Xperia 1

$900 at Amazon

An often overlooked phone made for content creation.

The Xperia 1 is a mostly underrated phone that puts a high priority on content creation with three great cameras, built-in video editing software, and an extra-tall 21:9 aspect ratio.