Learn how to turn off voice and video calling in your X (formerly Twitter) account to stop unsolicited VoIP calls from others and enhance your privacy.
Elon Musk is on a mission to turn X into a super app integrating everything from social interaction and streaming to payments, calling and beyond. But if you prefer to receive calls via FaceTime, WhatsApp, Slack, Teams or similar VoIP apps, you may want to turn off the calling functionality on X.
Follow along with our step-by-step tutorial below to change who can call you on X or disable this feature altogether. Doing so will enhance your call privacy and block unwanted calls from people you don’t know.
About calling on X
- X users can make and receive VoIP calls through the official X app for iOS and Android.
- By default, calling is turned on for all users
- You will only receive calls from X accounts you follow or people saved in the built-in contacts app, provided you gave X permission to access contacts.
- According to X, “to be able to call another user, they must have sent you a direct message at least once before.”
- To make a call, open your direct messages on X and choose an existing conversation or start a new one, then hit the phone icon to initiate a new VoIP call with this account.
Adjust or turn off calling on X
1) Open the official X app for iOS or Android and swipe right on your timeline or hit your profile picture, then choose Settings and privacy.
2) Tap Privacy and safety, followed by Direct messages.
3) The call settings should appear. Turn off the “Enable audio and video calling” switch to stop receiving calls from others on X.
4) Alternatively, you can cherry-pick the people who are allowed to call you by choosing between these options under the “Allow audio and video calls from” heading:
- People in your address book: Only the people in your phone’s contacts who have used their number on X are permitted to call you. For this to work, you’ll have to gave the X app permission to sync all your contacts.
- People you follow: Everyone in your following section can call you provided you’ve messaged them previously.
- Verified users: Restrict calling to X Premium subscribers you messaged before.
- Everyone: Both verified and non-verified users can call you on X so long as you messaged them before.
If you don’t want to turn off X calling, consider turning on the Always relay calls setting (previously called Enhanced call privacy) to hide your IP address on the call.
X calling is a per-account setting
Toggling X calling is a per-account setting that applies to your account instead of the X app on any particular device. For instance, turning the feature off in the X app on your iPhone will also disable it in the X app on your iPad and any other devices accessing the same X account.
Error messages after turning off X calling
If anyone on X tries to call you after you’ve turned off calling, they’ll see a banner saying, “Can’t call this account. They have disabled calling.” Calling someone who doesn’t use X on their mobile phone or the official app will yield a slightly reworded message, saying, “Can’t call this account. Their device or app doesn’t support calls.”
Other X tips for you: