To turn the iPhone ringer off and use silent mode, all you need to do is flip a switch.

On the upper left-hand side of the iPhone is a small switch. It's just above the two volume buttons and below the phone's corner. This is the iPhone's ringer control switch.

To turn the iPhone ringer off and put the phone into silent mode, simply flip this switch down towards the bottom of the phone. An onscreen icon showing a bell with a line through it will appear to confirm that the sounds are turned off.

You will also be able to see an orange dot or line (depending on your model) on the switch.

Flipping the switch back up will turn the ringer back on (another onscreen icon will let you know the phone is ready to make noise again).

Ringer and Vibration Options

Beyond using this switch, there are a number of settings that give you more control over the iPhone's ringer and vibration options. To access them, tap the Settings icon on your homescreen, scroll down to Sounds and tap it. The options on this screen allow you to do the following:

• Vibrate - Controls whether the iPhone vibrates when calls come in and it's not in silent mode. In iOS 7, your options include vibrating when a call comes in and the ringer is on or the phone is set to silent. Turn on these vibration options by moving the sliders to show green.
• Silent - In iOS 6 and earlier, this slider controls whether your phone will vibrate when the ringer is off and a call comes in. Slide it to on if you want the phone to vibrate even when the ringer is off. This option is not present in iOS 7.

• Ringer and Alerts - Lets you control the volume of your ringtones and decide whether the volume buttons just under the physical ringer switch can control volume volume or not.
• Ringtone - Sets the default ringtone for the phone. Assigning individual ringtones to contacts overrides this setting.
• Text Tone - Sets what ringtone or alert plays when you receive a new text message. In iOS 4.2 or higher, this can be overridden by assigning individual SMS tones to contacts.
• Other Sliders - The other sliders control whether tones sound when various events happen on the iPhone. You cannot control the tones played for these events in earlier versions of the iOS. In iOS 7, you have many more options, as detailed below
• New Voicemail - The tone that plays when you a new voicemail has just been left for you.
• New Mail - If a new email has just showed up in your inbox, this alert tone will sound.
• Sent Mail - Want confirmation that your email has been sent? This tone provides it.
• Tweet - This tone does the same thing as Sent Mail, except for sent tweets.
• Facebook Post - When a Facebook post is made, this sound will play.
• Calendar Alerts - If you've set the Calendar app to remind you of an event, you'll hear this tone before the event.
• Reminder Alerts - The same as Calendar Alerts, but for the Reminders app.
• AirDrop - In iOS 7, you can swap files with other users wirelessly via AirDrop. This sound plays when an AirDrop transfer is requested.
• Lock Sounds - When you click the on/off/hold button, you can choose to hear a click or not.
• Keyboard Click - Want a typewriter noise when you type on your phone? Turn this setting on.

 
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