6 Ways to Create a New Contact in iPhone

Contacts or address list is one of the most important things on your phone that you need to take care properly. However, contact list may quickly grow in size and contain useless entries over period of time. Though iPhone offers a dedicated Contacts app, most of the time you need to manage contacts using Phone, Mail or Messages app. If you are using Android phone, you know that it offers complete contact management features to maintain and cleanup the address book on your phone. Compared to Android, iPhone offers limited features for managing contacts. In this article, let us explore all possible ways of creating a new contact in iPhone.

Adding Contacts in iPhone

As mentioned, you can create a contact in iPhone from multiple apps. However, all the contacts are available centrally on your phone in Contacts app that you can access from different apps. If you are opting to sync contacts with iCloud, then the contacts will be synchronized across all your devices.

1. Create a New Contact in iPhone Using Contacts App

Open Contacts app and tap on the + icon showing on the top right corner. Add the required details and tap on “Done” to save your contact. You can set custom ringtone, text tone and profile picture for the contact to easily identify when receiving calls and messages. You can also add birthday to get reminder so that you will not miss that day.

Note on Groups: Unfortunately, you can’t create groups in iPhone Contacts app. If you have enabled iCloud sync, you will see “All iCloud” and “All iPhone” groups when tapping on “Groups” link. You can uncheck the options to hide or view the contacts in that group. However, this is a temporary action and the complete list will be back when you reopen the app or viewing the contacts from other apps. To create a new group, you should go to icloud.com website or use Contacts app in Mac. Otherwise, you can use third-party apps to create groups in iPhone.

2. Create New Contact From Phone App Contacts Section

There are at least three ways to add a new contact from Phone app in iPhone. First option is to do this from Contacts section.

Open Phone app and go to “Contacts” tap from the bottom navigation. This will show you the same contacts list screen from “Contacts” app. Tap on the + icon and create your new contact.

3. From Recents Call in Phone App

If you have a received a call and wanted to add that number to your contacts list, go to “Recents” tab. Tap on the information icon showing at the end of the number. Select “Create New Contact” to go to the contact creation page. Fill out your details and tap on “Done” to save the number in your contact list.

4. Directly from Keypad in Phone App

When typing a number in the Phone app’s keypad, tap on the “Add Number” link showing just below the number. Now, select “Create New Contact” option and fill out the details to save the number in your contacts list.

5. Using Message App to Add Contacts

As mentioned, iPhone centrally maintains the contacts and share across all your apps. Therefore, it is also possible to create or edit contact when you receive a message from someone whom you already know.

• Open Messages app and tap on the message to view its content.
• iPhone will show the sender number along with empty profile picture on top of the messages.
• Tap on the profile picture and select “info” button.
• On the next screen, select “Create New Contact” to open the contact creation page.
• Fill out the details and tap “Done” to save your contact.

6. Adding Email Contacts

It is also possible to create a new contact from your emails in iPhone Mail app.

• Open your email and iPhone by default will show only the sender name and To address above the email body. Simply tap on the sender name.
• This will show “From:” filed showing the same sender name as a link. Tap on the sender link to view more options.
• Select “Create New Contact” to save the email in your contact list with additional details.

It is also possible to automatically sync your email contacts with iPhone contacts list. Check our article on how to sync email contacts in iPhone to learn more.

Note: From all the above apps, you can also add the details to an existing contact instead of creating a new contact.

Sync Contacts Across Devices Using iCloud

When you have multiple Apple devices like iPhone and Mac using the same Apple ID, it make sense to sync all your contacts. This will help you to manage contacts on any device or from iCloud website and synchronize across devices instantly. In addition, you can get features like deleting contacts in bulk and quickly merging duplicate contacts using the Contacts app in Mac or iCloud website.

• Open “Settings” app and tap on your Apple ID showing on top.
• Select “iCloud” option and then enable “Contacts” from the list.

It may take some time for the sync to complete. Once the contacts are synchronized, you can view them in any other devices like Mac using the same Apple ID.