> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.incident.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Setting up notifications on iOS
**Download our mobile app**
If you'd like the best possible experience as a responder, download our mobile app [here](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/incident-io/id6471268530).
When you are paged, we'll try and contact you according to your [notification rules](https://app.incident.io/~/user-preferences/on-call-notifications).
By default, assuming you've enabled them, this will include:
* Push notification
* Phone call
* SMS
* Email
* Slack direct message
For push notifications, phone calls, and SMS messages, there are steps you can take to ensure you get notified, regardless of what your phone's silent mode and do-not-disturb settings are set up like.
***
## Phone calls + SMS
To receive phone calls and SMS that bypass silent mode and Do Not Disturb, you'll need to save the incident.io contact and enable Emergency Bypass.
1. Add the incident.io contact card to your phone's contacts
2. Open the **Contacts** app and tap **Lists** in the top-left corner
3. Select **All Contacts** — do not use the "incident.io" section (see note below)
4. Find and open the **incident.io On-call** contact
5. Tap **Edit**, then tap **Ringtone**
6. Enable **Emergency Bypass** so calls ring even when your phone is silenced
7. Repeat for **Text Tone** if you want SMS alerts to bypass silent mode
8. Tap **Done** to save
**Note for iOS 18+ users:** You may see an "incident.io" section in your Contacts app. There's a known Apple bug where editing contacts from this section causes the screen to become stuck. Always edit from "All Contacts" instead. We've reported this to Apple.
**Testing:** Send yourself a test page from your incident.io dashboard while your device is locked and silenced to confirm calls come through.
In some iOS versions the automatic contact can't be edited, which means you may not set up DND bypass, so to work around this, we can create an editable version.
You can enable this by going to Setting → Contacts → Can't set up Do Not Disturb bypass
## Push notifications
iOS has a concept of `Critical notifications`, which are push notifications that'll make a noise, regardless of whether your phone is on silent, or if you are in sleep/do-not-disturb. The incident.io app supports these natively so as long as you agreed to these notifications during set up of the app, you'll receive them. If you did not agree to them, you'll see a warning on the home screen of the app.
To enable these notifications, open the `Settings` app on your phone, scroll down to incident.io, select `Notifications` and then enable critical notifications.
Please note that the following settings in iOS could interfere with push notifications:
* [Announcing notifications](https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/airpods/dev8c670727e/web): if you have toggled "Announce notifications" in your incident.io app settings, sounds might go through connected AirPods or other devices when your device is locked.
* Screen Time: if you have a time limit set on your device, iOS might not deliver notifications correctly. Consider adding the incident.io app to your list of "Always on" apps.
**Apple Watch**
If you have an Apple Watch paired with your iPhone, notifications are delivered to your watch by default when it's on your wrist and your iPhone is locked. This means your iPhone won't make a sound — the notification goes to your watch instead.
If you'd prefer to always receive incident.io notifications on your iPhone, open the **Watch** app on your iPhone, tap **Notifications**, find **incident.io** in the list, and select **Off**. This will stop notifications from being mirrored to your watch, so they'll always play on your phone.
Connected **headphones or earbuds** (such as AirPods or other Bluetooth audio devices) can also affect where notification sounds are routed. If you have "Announce Notifications" enabled, sounds may play through your AirPods instead of your phone's speaker when your device is locked.
**Custom notification sounds**
For push notifications, you can pick a custom notification sound from Notifications > **Notification sounds**. If you want the notification to make a sound for a long time, we have notification sounds ranging from 1 second to 2 minutes long.
**Contact card**
If you're unable to provide contacts permission, you can still manually download our contact card [here](https://app.incident.io/api/mobile/responder_vcard) - however you'll need to periodically update it yourself as we may add phone numbers from time to time.