What to Do If Siri Forgets Who You Are
When I was driving last weekend, I asked Siri how to get to my house – we talk a lot. Only this time Siri feigned ignorance: “I don’t know your home address. Actually, I don’t know anything about you.
Hey Siri: Are we breaking up?
Clearing contacts upset Siri
I have installed more new MacBooks in the past two weeks than I probably have in the last year. Lately, I’ve noticed that I still have a ton of old contacts in my iCloud account – leftovers from years ago when I owned an iPhone and synced my data to Apple’s cloud services, not Google.
In hindsight, I usually just don’t sync Apple contacts when setting up a new MacBook, as I’m already filtering its results on my current iPhone – out of sight, out of sight.
This time I probably just checked all of the default iCloud settings, but that gave me a quick spring-cleaning job. I opened Contacts, filtered them down to my iCloud list, said goodbye to old phone numbers and friends I hadn’t spoken to in years, and deleted them all en masse. Much better. Only then did Siri stop telling me how to get home.
Hi it’s me
The first time Siri couldn’t tell me how to get home — using the traditional Siri Direction Home command, I thought it was an accident. When the same problem recurred in the following days, I began to think about why Siri suddenly started playing. I thought I must have accidentally deleted my own address information when clearing my contact list, so adding me back seemed like a logical solution.
When I had a free moment – no, not while driving – I opened Contacts on my iPhone, clicked on the card and smiled. I was right. All my information has disappeared. I entered my key details, including my address, asked Siri to drive me home, and got directions that I missed long ago.
And the next day, when I tried again to ask Siri for help in navigation, she reminded me that she did not know who I was. HM?
Know yourself: an annoying workaround
Right before I started writing this paragraph, I pulled out my card in the iOS Contacts app – no information. I added my address and refused. I waited a minute and pulled out the card again. However, nothing saved. Sigh.
As it turns out, there are a few things you must do that defy logical explanation in order for your card to correctly reflect your factual information in Contacts; and to let Siri know that you really are you and that commands about you should link to your information.
To fix this memory mess, I created a new contact in my iCloud account, David Murphy, and filled out all of my contact information. Then I opened the Settings app in iOS; went to contacts; clicked on “My Information”; and selected my new contact, David Murphy, to represent me. On the halfway.
Then I went back to the main settings screen, clicked on Siri & Search, and made sure Siri was definitely using my new contact – David Murphy – in the My Info field. She was. Everything looked good. I started Siri, asked her how to get home, and got the correct information.
I closed out of Maps and, heck, reopened the Contacts app. Here I am, a lovely new image of my head next to a David Murphy card that has finally (and correctly) been filled with all my information.
If it doesn’t work at first …
Troubleshooting can sometimes feel sisyphean, especially when you know you are on your way to a solution that simply doesn’t work for a variety of reasons. Don’t let this disappoint you.
In my case, I had to cheat and search the web to find others who had similar problems, which gave me a warning on where to start looking to fix mine. (Spending an hour rooting through iOS to get hidden settings isn’t always fun.)
I won, and Siri and I are talking again. I wish iOS would just recognize that “My Card” is me, and that should apply to any case where Apple needs my personal information for some purpose, but I’m just happy enough that I was able to find the right workarounds. to bring Siri back to her memory. … Better yet, now I can go home.