You see it in the screen on each phone. The main phone doesn't blink....just shows it in the screen so you have to look to see missed calls or that there are messages. The same shows on each phone. That's the only downside to these phones because I haven't seen that there were messages until much later because I don't think to look at it. The last phones I had like these, the base unit did blink so it caught your attention but the other phones didn't show anything so that's nice about these phones. Hope that helps!