You all must be using Cortana on your Windows 10 Mobile, Windows Phone 8.1 and PC. Cortana can do a plethora of things like telling you jokes, finding a cheaper restaurant, sing you a song. However, along with all this, Cortana also comes with a very nice feature, called Quiet Hours. Quiet hours on Windows 10 allows you to get rid of unwanted calls and messages during a certain time period. In this guide, I share how to use Quiet Hours in Windows 10 Mobile.
How to use Quiet Hours in Windows 10 Mobile
When it’s on, any phone calls you get will go straight to voicemail, and all notifications will be silent (unless you’ve told Cortana you’d like to hear from the people you have in your breakthrough list).
To Turn it on right now:
- Launch Cortana> Click on the Hamburger Menu> and then tap Cortana’s Notebook> Quiet hours.
- Click on Turn On Right now to turn on quiet hours immediately. It will stay on until you turn it off, or until any automatic rules you’ve set up kick in.
When it’s turned on, you will see a Half moon kind of icon next to your SIM icon.
Automatic Rules:
Are you a college-going, student? Just like me, do you also have to put your phone on silent mode, but you always forget to do so? Well, No worries! Cortana will do that for you! With Automatic Rules, you can have Cortana turn on Quiet Hours automatically at specific times (say, from 10:00 A.M. until 5:00 P.M., for example), or turn it on for you whenever you’re in a meeting that’s marked “busy” on your calendar.
To Turn it on, follow the same steps, until you reach Quiet hours, then click on Automatic Rules. Now select the day, and time you want it to turn on automatically.
Break-through rules
Follow the same steps as above until you reach the Quiet Hours window. Under Break-through rules, you will find Edit Break-through list, click on that if you want to add some exceptions like your family member. Adding your contacts in the list is very simple. Just click on Edit Break-through list> Tap on “+”> Select people you want to break-through. Now, these very people can call, or text you, even when Quiet hours in On.
More Rules to Break Through
Now, what if somebody makes a call from a number which is not in your contact list and its importance. Usually, in this situation, the person would call you multiple times to get your attention, and this is where the rules kick in.
Calls:
- Tick the box which says, Anyone, rings through if they call twice in 3 minutes. This will let anyone break-through if they call you twice in three minutes.
- Tick the box which says, People on the list ring through. This lets your contacts, which you added in your exceptions list, call you, but can’t text you.
Text:
You can send auto-reply. You need to turn on the option “Texts from people on the list get through”. If they happen to send you a message, which will not be delivered to you anyway, they get an automatic response saying, Hi, the person you’re trying to reach is busy and may not respond right away.
However, I miss another option, which used to be there in Windows Phone 8.1 of letting your inner-circles break-through, just select Ask inner circle: Breakthrough? Those people will receive a reply from Cortana that says, “Hi, [your name] is busy and may not respond right away. But if it’s urgent, just text back “Knock Knock” and your message will break through.
How often do you use Quiet Hours in Windows 10 Mobile? Sound off below.
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Well no, a lot of people, in a lot of countries don’t even have it, even two years later. Changing regions just to use it can be a hassle, especially when it comes to Store purchases.
Microsoft should NEVER have made Quiet Hours a part of Cortana.
Totally agree! No Cortana here in Belgium, in the middle of Europe with no ETA whatsoever. I tried Cortana by putting phone on US and I did not like her anyway. I have no use for stupid jokes, don’t like to speak to my phone and anyway, there is no local search whastoever available in Bing for Belgium.
The only function I need are quiet hours and I also did not like it that they would not work if you would disable GPS to save battery as Cortana disable itself…
Microsoft took a perfectly working function and made it unavailable and non working for the majority of people.
Quiet hours should not be part of Cortana!
The best 2 parts of quiet hours for me are now gone. Linking to busy times in calendar and the knock knock texts. So helpful in my work. Only had one day but so far I am wishing I had left phone on 8.1
100% agree. Quiet hours linked to calendar was very useful. Didn’t realise how much I used it until it was gone!
Thank you! I was pulling my hair out looking for this setting. Very different from v8.
I use Quiet Hours daily on automatic. I also use the Break Through list and all of that is good.
But the big problem in Quiet Hours is that it blocks my alarms for appointments and meetings. It even blocks the vibration notifications. there is no way to get that and so it becomes questionable for use in a business envoronment.
I have quiet hours automatically on from 11 PM to 8 AM so I can sleep and my kid isn’t woken up. I also enable it for my midday nap. It was set to allow anyone through after 2 rings in 3 minutes, but today’s nap was disturbed by a robocall! So now I’ve got it set to my inner circle, but I’m not sure the “2 in 3” rule still applies, which would still be useful, like if I’m at a concert and there was an emergency.
Lucky you, LumberGini. For me, having set up the break through list the listed names simply don’t get through, whether on automatic or manual Quiet Hours. Given the history of this particular feature, it is a nice idea to have but totally useless in reality, at least for Lumia 520 and 650 phones.