One of the great things about using a smartphone is no longer having to memorize phone numbers nor replace your paper-based address book every few years. Your contacts information can now be stored and updated directly on your smartphone with this information able to transfer automatically when you change handsets.
There are several ways to create a contact in your phone’s Contacts (phone/address book).
Adding a contact manually
To add a number manually (where you will be typing in the person’s name and number), simply find the phone icon located on your main screen (see yellow circled icon below left). When you select it, your existing contacts list will appear. In top right of screen, find the “+” button (see yellow circled icon below, right, and please excuse the messy scribbling to obscure full names of contacts)
Once you tick “+”, you will get a screen with blank fields for you to complete. You only need fill in the fields that you want (see below, left) by ticking on the desired field (eg “First name”) and using the typing bars that pop up. You can leave the fields blank that you don’t know or care about, but be sure to hit “Done” (see below circled yellow, right) for your changes to be saved! Top tip: make searching for your contacts easy by inputting information that you can easily search by. For example if you occasionally use a dog walker named “Mark” but don’t know or can’t remember his last name, simply put “dog walker” under the Last Name or Company field. That way later you will be able to search your contacts by typing in “dog walker”.
Saving a contact from your call list or that someone has shared with you
Most of the process will be the same as above, but some of the information will be pre-filled for you if you start from your call list or someone shares a contact with you from their phone list.
When you call someone or someone calls you, you may benefit from adding them to your contacts for ease. This will allow you both to search for their number easily from your contacts list and also their name will then pop up on your screen if they call you in the future. In this way you can decide at a glance if you want to answer the call at that moment or not.
To create a new contact from a number you have called or has called you, go into the phone book and select “Recents” (see yellow circled below, left). Then select the circled “i” to the right of the number you’d like to save (same screenshot, left, mid-screen).
If someone shares a contact with you via text or other messaging app, simply tick on the contact. Either way your iphone will open up the information in your Contacts and prompt you to add information or save to your list by creating a new contact (see below, yellow circled, right). It may be that someone has sent you updated contact information for someone you already had in your contacts. In that case, you would select “Add to Existing Contact” (see choice below yellow circled, right). If it’s someone you already had in your contacts and you are simply updating, you will avoid having to re-type all the other information, and you will also avoid having duplicate entries for the same person or business, which leads to confusion as you won’t remember which is new.
“Add to Emergency Contacts” (in red text below, right) should be reserved for one or two close friends or family members whom you would want notified if you were unable to call yourself in an emergency.
Sharing your contact with someone else
Grab the contact you wish to share by going into your Contacts list (again start with the phone icon). If it’s not a true contact but rather a number from your recent calls (incoming or outgoing), simply go to “Recents” (see above left). Once you have the correct selection, simply choose “Share Contact” (See above entry above the yellow circle, right). This will bring up from the bottom of your screen a list of options. In the first row are recent contacts. Below that are general options of text messages, email, etc. You can find more options by scrolling from right to left with your finger over these. Below are other options, like “Save to Files”.
So choose first how you’d like to share the contact (eg by text, other messaging app or email) by selecting, then fill in the recipient in the appropriate field as you normally would send a text or email and hit “send”.
Finding a Contact through Search feature
Open your Contacts (look for the phone app).
Now find the Search bar near the top (see yellow highlighted area of image below) and type in whichever part of the person’s or company’s information you can remember. For example if you can’t remember the full name of your favorite nail salon, just type in “nail”, and it should come up as long as you’ve included the word “nail” when you saved the contact.
Now you’re good to go…able to save, edit and share with others important contacts on your smartphone.
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