To instantly turn on DND, swipe down on your phone screen twice and tap “Do Not Disturb” in the status bar. If it’s not there, you can add it by tapping the pencil icon, then long-pressing and dragging the DND icon to the top section.
You can also enable the feature from the Settings app by going to “Sound & Vibration” or a similarly labeled menu and tapping “Do Not Disturb”.
On the “Do Not Disturb” settings page for most Android devices, you can choose which interrupts will bypass the setting. Under the ‘Exceptions’ section, you’ll find the ‘Allowed Notifications’ to achieve this (via Nerds Chalk).
For some Android phones, you can even identify specific people and allow their texts and phone calls to go through, as well as messages triggered by reminders and events from your Calendar app. If you can see “What can interrupt Do Not Disturb,” tap “People” and navigate through the Chats, Calls, and Messages submenus to identify a custom list of notifications to allow when DND is engaged. Some Android phones may not have these menus and instead you will see “Allow messages/calls from”.
There may also be a section that lets you exempt app notifications, alarms, and sounds from other forms of media. Tap these menus to select sound types and add apps you want to bypass DND. Finally, there should be an option for “repeat callers” to go through DND, or people who call more than once within a specified time. Consider enabling this option to allow emergency contact.