How to add a contact to Favorites on iPhone

Adding people to your Favorites list on iPhone makes calling them much faster. Instead of scrolling through hundreds of contacts, you tap one button and the call goes through. This is wonderful for the family members and friends you call most often, like your spouse, children, doctor, or best friend.

Favorites also work with Face ID lock screen widgets and the Apple Watch. So you can call someone without even unlocking your phone in some cases. And if you set up Emergency Bypass on a favorite, their calls will ring through even when your phone is on Do Not Disturb. That is a nice safety net for the people who matter most.

To add someone to Favorites, they need to already be in your Contacts. If they are not, you will need to add them as a contact first. Open the Phone app, tap Contacts at the bottom, tap the plus sign in the top right, and fill in their name and phone number.

Once someone is in your Contacts, adding them to Favorites takes about 20 seconds. You can have many favorites. There is no real limit, but most people pick between 4 and 10. Too many and the list becomes hard to scan.

You can also pick what kind of action a favorite uses. By default, tapping a favorite calls them on their phone. But you can set it to FaceTime video, FaceTime audio, text message, or email instead. So you might have your daughter listed twice — once for calls and once for FaceTime video — depending on how you usually reach her.

To remove someone from Favorites later, open the Phone app, tap Favorites, tap Edit in the top left, and tap the red minus sign next to their name. This does not delete the contact, only removes them from Favorites.