10 Contacts App Life Hacks Every Apple User Should Know.
The Contacts app is the foundation of all my correspondence on my iPhone, and to a large extent on my MacBook as well. At first glance, Contacts seems like a simple app for storing names, phone numbers, and other information about people or companies. However, beneath the surface lie great features, such as the ability to quickly delete duplicate contacts, smart lists, and faster ways to bulk share or delete contacts. Here are the 10 best life hacks for the Contacts app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac:
Use this hidden search feature to remove duplicate contacts.
If you have the same phone number or email address saved for multiple contacts, you can easily delete them from your iPhone . iOS displays a prompt at the top of your contact list that makes it easy to delete duplicate contacts. The same feature is hidden in the Mac version of Contacts. To try it out, open Contacts on your Mac and select the “Cards” menu at the top of the screen. Then click “Find Duplicates.” This will identify duplicate contacts, allowing you to quickly merge or delete them.
Use a two-finger swipe to select multiple contacts.
Selecting multiple contacts in the Contacts app on Mac is quite easy. You can hold down Shift or Ctrl and use the arrow keys, or click multiple contacts to select them all. On iPhone or iPad, this feature is available with a hidden gesture. Use two fingers and swipe up or down the contact list. Once you master this gesture, you can quickly select multiple contacts. After selecting a group of contacts, you can scroll up or down the list and use the same gesture to add more contacts to the selected group. This is the fastest way to perform bulk actions in the Contacts app on your iPhone.
Copy a contact and paste it into Messages to quickly share phone numbers.
When sending a contact, iOS prompts you to select the fields you want to share. This is great for privacy, as by default you don’t want to share your partner’s home address, birthday, wedding anniversary, nicknames, or other personal information. However, this extra step makes sending contacts a bit more complicated. If you want to send a contact faster on your iPhone, you can copy and paste it into the Messages app. To try it, open the Contacts app and scroll until you see the contact’s name. Long-press the contact’s name and tap “Copy.” Open Messages, paste it into any chat, and send. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work with third-party messaging apps like WhatsApp, but it works fine for text messages and iMessage.
Hold down the message button on a contact card to switch to another messaging app.
On your iPhone, you can use the Contacts app to message people on WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, and other apps. Simply open a contact and hold the send button. This will display a list of apps where you can message that person. WhatsApp doesn’t have access to my contacts, which is a bit annoying when messaging acquaintances. Since I started using the Contacts app to initiate WhatsApp chats, messaging new people has become much faster.
Hold the call button to change the app used to call the other person.
Just as you can use Contacts to message people in third-party apps, you can also use it to make calls within those apps. Go to any contact in the Contacts app on your iPhone and hold the call button. This will allow you to call them on WhatsApp, Signal, or any other app where their phone number is linked.
You can quickly delete a contact by long-pressing their name.
In iOS, quickly deleting contacts is difficult. This prevents accidental deletions, but it can be annoying when you just want to delete people you last interacted with in high school. To speed up the process, open Contacts on your iPhone and long-press the name of any contact. From the pop-up menu, select “Delete” to delete the contact. To quickly delete multiple contacts, use a two-finger swipe gesture to select multiple contacts and long-press any of the selected contacts. From the pop-up menu, you can select “Delete X Contacts,” where X is the number of selected contacts.
Use the Mac app to export contacts and back them up offline.
To export your entire address book, you can use the Contacts app on your Mac. After opening the app, go to File > Export > Export vCard . This will save all your contacts to a vcf file, which you can import into Google Contacts or other apps and services. You can also export contacts to a PDF file. Simply select File > Export to PDF to export.
Remove fields you don’t use when adding new contacts on Mac.
When creating a new contact on your Mac, the app displays several fields you may never use. If you only need to store phone numbers and email addresses, you can remove all other empty fields from the template. To do this, open Contacts on your Mac and go to Card > Add Field > Edit Template to add or remove fields from the default contact template.
Use smart lists to filter contacts on your Mac.
If you recently added a contact, such as a car dealership salesperson, but forgot their name, the Contacts app won’t make it easy to find them. Instead of scrolling through your entire contact list and trying to guess who you spoke to, you can use the Contacts app on your Mac to quickly find them. It allows you to create Smart Lists to sort contacts by date added. Open Contacts on your Mac and go to File > Create Smart List . Now, select “Card” from the first drop-down menu, then “Modified” from the second. Then, you can add a number of days, such as 10 days, to the last field and click “OK.” Click the Smart List you created in the left pane, and you’ll see all contacts created or updated in the last 10 days, including the hypothetical car dealer.
Smart lists also allow you to quickly create groups of related contacts. For example, I saved the details of all my former colleagues, each with their company name. To quickly find them all, I created a Smart List that groups all contacts by company name.
Optimize your contact card to avoid providing unnecessary information.
NameDrop is one of my favorite Apple features . It allows you to quickly share contact information by holding two Apple devices close to each other. Try holding your iPhone close to someone else’s iPhone, and you’ll see a full-screen pop-up asking whether you want to share your contact with someone or just get their contact information. To protect your privacy, you should limit the information you share with others. The best way to do this is to update your contact card. Open the Contacts app on your iPhone and tap your name at the top. Tap the Edit button and remove any information you don’t want to share. I also recommend updating your profile photo. Instead of a random photo, you can use an emoji or a professional photo you’re comfortable sharing publicly.