Is there an easy way to add someone to my Contacts list on my iPhone when they call me?
When you think of basic uses for a phone, remembering numbers and, by extension, remembering who calls you, seems like it’s one of the most fundamental. I mean, isn’t that the core feature that would make anyone want their smartphone, the ability to stop remembering dozens or even hundreds of phone numbers? And yet on a number of different phones, it’s not the most simple and elegant experience to add someone new to the system.
On an Apple iPhone, you’re running iOS 12 so all your phone numbers are stored in Contacts. Hopefully you have iCloud set up so that it’s also automatically backed up to the cloud, ensuring that even if you were to lose or break your phone, you’d have a copy of everyone’s phone, email, birthday, etc.
I most commonly add numbers based on voicemail or text messages: You know who they are, you just need to add ’em to the Contacts list. Here’s an example, step by step.
First off, two voicemail messages, one from a local heating company, the other from NBC Universal in NYC:
See the “i” in a circle to the right of each entry? That’s key! Tap on it and you’ll find that there’s a lot of information, including other times that this particular number has texted, called, left voicemail, etc:
In this instance, one missed call at 1.38pm on January 2, 2019. Notice all the options here, however. If I want to share this phone number with someone else, I can easily tap “Share Contact”, or I can share my current geographic location with them by tapping “Share My Location”. More interesting are “Create New Contact” and “Add to Existing Contact”. You’ll want the latter if it’s a new number for someone you already have in your Contacts system. This can be a home number vs mobile, work vs home, or similar.
Since this is an entirely new number, however, I’ll tap on “Create New Contact“, which brings me to a simple template. I tend to enter businesses where the entire business name is the first name field, as you can see, so it looks like this after I assign a name to the number:
If you’re so inclined, it’s a good idea to tap on “phone” (in blue) and choose what kind of number it is, especially if it’s their mobile. A tiny bit of organization at the beginning makes it all easier to manage down the road in my experience!
Swipe down a bit and you’ll see that there are quite a few fields you can fill out. For this particular business, I can enter their street address so I can use Apple Maps to check directions as needed:
Easy enough, and you can skip the ZIP code if you don’t know it; maps will still work!
Done entering information? Make sure the address has the proper identification (e.g., I’ll change “home” to “work” above by tapping on the word “home”) then tap “Done” on the top right to save the info. Done!
Here’s the Contact I created:
What’s nice is that anywhere it showed the number now shows the name of the company or person whose contact has just been added to the phone Contacts system:
Much better. Now to update the NBC Universal phone number…
Pro Tip: I have lots of Apple iPhone help here on the site while you’re here. Please check it out!