6. Managing Contacts

You’ll be using your iPhone to make calls, get directions, send emails, and do many other tasks that require contact information, including names, phone numbers, email addresses, and physical addresses. It would be time-consuming and a nuisance to have to remember and retype this information each time you use it. Fortunately, you don’t have to do either because the Contacts app puts all your contact information at your fingertips (literally).

To use contact information, it must be stored in the Contacts app. This can be accomplished in several ways. When you configure an online account on your iPhone—such as iCloud or Google—to include contact information, the contact information stored in that account is immediately available on your phone without you having to do anything else. (See Chapter 3, “Setting Up and Using an Apple ID, iCloud, and Other Online Accounts,” for the steps to enable contact information in online accounts.) You can manually add new contact information to the Contacts app by capturing that information when you perform tasks (such as reading email). You can also enter new contact information directly in the Contacts app.

The Contacts app also makes it easy to keep your contact information current by doing such things as adding more information, updating existing contacts, or removing contacts you no longer need.

Using the Contacts settings, you can determine whether contact information can be used in Siri and other apps, how contacts are sorted and displayed, if or how names are shortened on various screens, your contact information, and which account should be the default for contact information. You can probably work with your contacts just fine without making any changes to these Contacts settings, but if you want to make adjustments, open the Settings app and tap Contacts.

Use the information in the following table to configure your contact settings.

Contacts Settings

Setting	Description
Accounts & Passwords	Use the Accounts & Passwords settings to configure the online accounts you use to store contact information (see Chapter 3).
Siri & Search	Set the Search & Siri Suggestions switch to off (white) if you don’t want to use contact information in searches or to allow Siri to access your contact information. Set Find Contacts in Other Apps to off (white) if you don’t want contact information in the various apps to be suggested to you, such as to automatically complete addresses when you create emails, or try to identify callers when a number calling you is unknown. You typically should leave both of these on (green) unless you find the automatic contact suggestions annoying or not helpful.
Sort Order	Tap First, Last to have contacts sorted by first name and then last name or tap Last, First to have contacts sorted by last name and then first name.
Display Order	To show contacts in the format first name, last name, tap First, Last. To show contacts in the format last name, first name, tap Last, First.
Short Name	You can choose whether short names are used and, if they are, what form they take. Short names are useful because more contact information can be displayed in a smaller area, and they look “friendlier.” To use short names, move the Short Name switch to the on position (green). Tap the format of the short name you want to use. You can choose from a combination of initial and name or just first or last name. If you want nicknames for contacts used for the short name when available, set the Prefer Nicknames switch to on (green).
My Info	Use this setting to find and tap your contact information in the Contacts app, which it can insert for you in various places and which Siri can use to call you by name; your current contact information is indicated by the label “me” next to the alphabetical index.
Default Account	Tap the account in which you want new contacts to be created by default (which is then marked with a check mark). If you have only one account configured for contacts, you don’t have this option.

On the Home screen, tap Mail.

Use the Mail app to read an email message.

Tap the email address for which you want to create a new contact; if the address isn’t in blue as shown, tap Details before tapping the address. The contact’s Info screen appears. You see as much information as could be gleaned from the email address, which is typically the sender’s name and email address.

Tap Create New Contact. The New Contact screen appears. The name, email address, and any other information that can be identified are added to the new contact. The email address is labeled with iPhone’s best guess, such as other or home.

Use the New Contact screen to enter more contact information or update the information that was added (such as the label applied to the email address) and save the new contact by tapping Done. This works just like when you create a new contact manually, except that you already have some information—most likely, a name and an email address. For details on adding and changing more information for the contact, see the next task, “Creating Contacts Manually.”

The Contacts app leads you through creating each type of information you might want to capture. You can choose to enter some or all of the default information on the New Contact screen, or add additional fields as needed.

The following steps show creating a new contact containing the most common contact information you are likely to need:

On the Home screen, tap Contacts. (If you don’t see the Contacts app on a Home screen, tap the Extras folder to open it and you should see the app’s icon. You might want to move the Contacts icon from this folder to a more convenient location on your Home screen; see Chapter 5, “Customizing How Your iPhone Looks and Sounds,” for the steps to do this.) The Contacts screen displays.

If you see the Groups screen instead, tap Done located in the upper-right corner of the screen to move to the Contacts screen. (Groups are covered later.)

Tap Add (+). The New Contact screen appears with the default fields.

To associate a photo with the contact, tap add photo. You can choose a photo already on your phone or take a new photo. These steps show using an existing photo. See the “Taking Photos” note for the steps to take a new photo.

Tap Choose Photo.

Use the Photos app to move to, select, move, and size the photo you want to associate with the contact (see Chapter 14, “Viewing and Editing Photos and Video with the Photos App,” for help with the Photos app).

Tap Choose. You return to the New Contact screen where the photo you selected is displayed.

Tap in the First name field and enter the contact’s first name; if you are creating a contact for an organization only, leave both name fields empty. (The Display Order preference determines whether the First name or Last name field appears at the top of the screen.)

Tap in the Last name field and enter the contact’s last name.

Enter the organization, such as a company, with which you want to associate the contact, if any.

Tap add phone to add a phone number. A new phone field appears along with the numeric keypad.

Use the numeric keypad to enter the contact’s phone number. Include any prefixes you need to dial it, such as area code and country code. The Contacts app formats the number for you as you enter it.

Tap the label for the phone number, such as home, to change it to another label. The Label screen appears.

Swipe up and down the Label screen to see all the options available.

Tap the label you want to apply to the number, such as iPhone. That label is applied and you move back to the New Contact screen.

Repeat steps 10−14 to add more phone numbers to the contact.

Swipe up the screen until you see add email.

Tap add email. The keyboard appears.

Type the contact’s email address.

Tap the label for the email address to change it.

Tap the label you want to apply to the email address. You move back to the New Contact screen.

Repeat steps 17−20 to add more email addresses.

If necessary, swipe up the screen until you see Ringtone.

Tap Ringtone. The list of ringtones and alert tones available on your iPhone appears.

Set the Emergency Bypass switch to on (green) if you want sounds and vibrations for phone calls or new messages associated with the contact you are creating to play even when Do Not Disturb is on. (For more about Do Not Disturb, see Chapter 1, “Getting Started with Your iPhone” and for information about working with notifications, see Chapter 2, “Using Your iPhone’s Core Features.”)

Swipe up and down the list to see all of the tones available.

Tap the ringtone you want to play when the contact calls you. When you tap a ringtone, it plays so you can experiment to find the one that best relates to the contact. Setting a specific ringtone helps you identify a caller without looking at your phone. (For more on working with sounds and vibrations, see Chapter 5.)

Tap Vibration and use the resulting screen if you want to set a specific vibration for the contact (this is also covered in Chapter 5).

Tap Done. You return to the New Contact screen.

Using the pattern you have learned in the previous steps, move to the next item you want to set and tap it.

Use the resulting screens to enter the information you want to configure for the contact. After you’ve done a couple of the fields, it is easy to do the rest because the same pattern is used throughout.

When you’ve added all the information you want to capture, tap Done. The New Contact screen closes and the new contact is created and ready for you to use in Contacts and other apps. It is also moved onto other devices with which your contact information is synced. See the “Creating Contacts Expanded” Go Further sidebar for additional information on syncing and maintaining contacts.

On the Home screen, tap Contacts. (If you don’t see the Contacts app on the Home screen, tap the Extras folder to open it and you see the Contacts app. You might want to move the Contacts icon from this folder to a more convenient location on your Home screen; see Chapter 5 for the steps to do this.) The Contacts screen displays with the contacts listed in the view and sort format determined by the Contacts settings. (If the Groups screen appears, tap Done, which is located in the upper-right corner of the screen. You move back to the Contacts screen.)

You can find a contact to view by browsing (step 2), using the index (step 3), or searching (step 4). You can use combinations of these, too, such as first using the index to get to the right area and then browsing to find the contact in which you are interested.

Swipe up or down to scroll the screen to browse for contact information; swipe up or down on the alphabetical index to browse rapidly.

Tap the index to jump to contact information organized by the first letter of the format you selected in the Contact Preferences (last name or first name).

Use the Search tool to search for a specific contact; tap in the tool, type the name (you can type last, first, company, and nickname), and then tap the contact you want to view on the results list.

Tap a contact to view that contact’s information.

Swipe up and down the screen to view all the contact’s information.

Tap the data or icons on the screen to perform actions, including the following:

• Phone numbers—Tap a phone number to call it. You can also tap one of the phone icons just under the contact’s image to call that number. For example, to call the number labeled as mobile, tap the mobile icon.

• Email addresses—Tap an email address or the icon with the address’s label (such as other for the email address labeled as other) on it to create a new message to that address.

• URLs—Tap a URL to open Safari and move to the associated website.

• Addresses—Tap an address to show it in the Maps app.

• FaceTime—Tap video or FaceTime to start a FaceTime call with the contact. (If an icon, such as video, is disabled, you don’t have that type of information stored for the contact.)

• Text—Tap the message icon or tap Send Message and choose the phone number or email address to which you want to send a text message.

• Share Contact—Tap Share Contact. The Share menu appears. To share the contact via email, tap Mail; to share it via a text, tap Message; or to share it using AirDrop, tap AirDrop. You can also share via Twitter or Facebook. Then, use the associated app to complete the task.

• Favorites—Tap Add to Favorites and choose the phone number or email address you want to designate as a favorite. You can use this in the associated app to do something faster. For example, if it’s the Phone app, you can tap the Favorites tab to see your favorite contacts and quickly dial one by tapping it. You can also quickly access favorites from the FAVORITES widget by swiping to the right when you are on the Lock screen. You can add multiple items (such as cell and work phone numbers) as favorites for one contact.

To return to the prior screen without performing an action, tap the Back icon located in the upper-left corner of the screen.

Open the app from which you want to access contact information (this example uses Mail).

Tap the Compose icon.

Tap Add (+) in the To field.

Search, browse, or use the index to find the contact whose information you want to use. If you browse or use the index, you see the contacts on the screen and can skip to step 5. If you searched for the contact, you see the results of your search under the Search bar. The text that matches your search is shown in bold. For example, if you search for Wal, you see people named Wallace, Walker, Walken, etc., and “Wal” is shown in bold in each result.

Tap the contact whose information you want to use. (If a contact doesn’t have relevant information; for example, if no email address is configured when you are using the Mail app, that contact is grayed out and can’t be selected.)

If the contact has only one type of the relevant information (such as a single email address, if you started in the Mail app), you immediately move back to the app and the appropriate information is entered, and you can skip to step 7.

If the contact has multiple entries of the type you are trying to use, tap the information you want to use—in this case, the email address. The information is copied into the app and entered in the appropriate location.

Complete the task you are doing, such as sending an email message.

Use the Contacts app to find and view the contact whose information you want to change.

Tap Edit. The contact screen moves into Edit mode, and you see Unlock icons.

Tap current information to change it; you can change a field’s label by tapping it, or you can change the data for the field by tapping the information you want to change. Use the resulting tools, such as the phone number entry keypad, to make changes to the information. These tools work just like when you create a new contact (refer to “Creating Contacts Manually,” earlier in this chapter).

To add more fields, tap the Add (+) icon in the related section, such as add phone in the phone number section; then, select a label for the new field and complete its information. This also works just like adding a new field to a contact you created manually.

Tap a field’s Unlock (−) icon to remove that field from the contact.

Tap Delete. The information is removed from the contact.

To change the contact’s photo, tap the current photo, or the word edit under the current photo, and use the resulting menu and tools to select a new photo, take a new photo, delete the existing photo, or edit the existing one.

When you finish making changes, tap Done. Your changes are saved, and you move out of Edit mode.

Find and view the contact you want to delete.

Tap Edit.

Swipe up to get to the bottom of the Info screen.

Tap Delete Contact.

Tap Delete Contact to confirm the deletion. The app deletes the contact, and you return to the Contacts screen.