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Not sure if this is the correct place to ask, but is there a way to prevent anyone from calling my Android phone directly, so they all incoming (and perhaps outgoing, but incoming is most important) calls must be filtered through Google Voice?

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I would be interested in the same thing, but for text messages. – Kortuk Jan 26 '11 at 2:36
Right now, I'm blocking all text messages. I can still send and receive texts via the Google Voice app. It seems to work fairly nicely just playing around with it. I had to set this up with tmobile though. I didn't see an option for blocking calls, so was hoping there was some way to do it. – jonderry Jan 26 '11 at 2:42
does anyone have your cell number? If you don't give out that number and use gv to call out, conceivably, no one would ever know your cell number. – Matt Jan 26 '11 at 5:15
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No, I will still get occasional wrong numbers though, plus unsolicited calls. – jonderry Jan 26 '11 at 8:03

3 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

I suppose one way to do this would be with a general call blocking app. I use Mr. Number Call Block on my phone, and you could set it up with the following rules:

  1. Block all calls
  2. Add your GV number as an exception to the blocking rule

That should allow you to basically block all calls that don't originate from you GV number. The downside to this would be that blocked calls wouldn't get forwarded through GV's call service, but rather would get sent to voicemail (or you could choose to have it automatically answer->hang up to block the calls completely).

For outgoing calls you should just be able to use the settings in the GV app. My EVO has an option do use GV for all outgoing calls, though I'm not sure if other phones do, to be honest.

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The GVoice app does have the option for outgoing calls in all recent versions as far as I'm aware. – Matthew Read♦ Jan 26 '11 at 4:01
I think that will only work for incoming calls if you have gv show your gv number on the caller id, instead of the incoming caller's number. In this case you wouldn't have caller id anymore. Right? – Matt Jan 26 '11 at 4:37
@Matt: Yeah, you'd lose caller ID if you did this. I can't think of any other way to restrict calls to GV only, though :-/ – eldarerathis♦ Jan 26 '11 at 4:45
Thanks, this is an interesting idea, though I do think having caller id is more useful than blocking the wrong numbers and random spam calls that will come to my new unadvertised cell number directly (just ported my old cell to GV). – jonderry Jan 26 '11 at 6:22
up vote 2 down vote

Not blocking per se, but depending on your carrier you can have your regular number always forward to your Google Voicemail.

Some information here: http://www.google.com/support/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=164652

and here: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/voice/thread?tid=00a93855af6943b4

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Will this still allow my calls from Google Voice to get through and ring my phone, or will they be forwarded back directly to voice mail too? – jonderry Jan 26 '11 at 16:01
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Shouldn't affect your GV at all. (I set this up on my own phone ages ago.) – Al Everett Jan 26 '11 at 16:03
I just tried this with tmobile, and I can't get calls through to my phone from Google Voice if I switch unconditional call forwarding on. Is there a different type of forwarding you were referring to? I think I was using all of the other forwarding options to use google voice as my voicemail if my phone received any unanswered/busy calls, but this still allows my phone to ring if the phone is called directly (unless I switch unconditional forwarding on). – jonderry Jan 27 '11 at 5:44
I expect it varies by carrier. I have Verizon an no experience with T-Mobile. – Al Everett Jan 27 '11 at 14:14
up vote 0 down vote

here's a thought. block all incoming calls, except for ones with your GV number. Set your GV Cid to GV number, then use GV call screen function to tell who is calling. note, though, callers will only be asked for their name, if they call from a number not in your Google Contacts.

As a side note, thinking of setting my fiance phone to this, as her sister won't use GV, thus eating up her minutes.

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Eating up her minutes? You have to pay for incoming calls? – Richard Borcsik Jun 26 '12 at 8:20

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