When you add new contacts on your iPhone you can have a varying amount of information.
Sometimes you will have a phone number, email address, full name, company, and even more, but other times you might only have a first name and phone number.
Due to the varying levels of information that might be included when you add new iPhone contacts, it can be difficult to find people if you don’t know what to search for.
It’s possible that your iPhone contact list is currently sorted by the last name. This means that as you are scrolling through the list looking for contacts, everyone’s name is going to be organized based on the value that is in the last name field of their contact card.
You can change the iPhone 13 contact sort order to first name by going to Settings > Contacts > Sort Order > First, Last.
The list should update right away, meaning that when you go back all of the names will be sorted based on the value in the first name field instead.
You can continue reading our article below for more information on using and changing the sort order for the contacts that you stored on your iPhone 13 smartphone.
How to Organize iPhone 13 Contacts By First Name
- Open Settings.
- Choose Contacts.
- Select Sort Order.
- Tap First, Last.
Our guide continues below with more on adjusting the contact sort order on your Apple iPhone, including pictures of these steps.
How to Change the iPhone 13 Contacts Sort Order to First Name (Guide with Pictures)
The steps in this article were performed on an iPhone 13 in the iOs 15.4.1 operating system.
Step 1: Open the Settings app on your iPhone 13.
Step 2: Scroll down and select the Contacts option.
Step 3: Choose the Sort Order option.
Step 5: Select the First, Last option.
The desired sort order is the one that has the check mark next to it.
Now you should be able to go back to your contacts list and everything should be sorted by the first name.
For example, if you had someone in your list named Mike Thompson then their name would appear alphabetically with the “M”s instead of the “T”s.
Our tutorial continues below with additional discussion about changing the sort order of your iPhone contact list.
More Information on How to Switch the iPhone 13 Contact Sorting Order
Changing the sort order of your contacts won’t actually affect anything about the information that you have added to your contact cards. It also won’t require you to edit anything or change the way that you create new contacts.
You can create new iPhone 13 contacts by opening the Phone app, choosing the Contacts tab, then tapping the + icon at the top-right of the screen. You can also open the Contacts app from your Home screen. If you don’t see the Contacts app then you may need to swipe left on your Home screen and open the Extras or Utilities folder. If you don’t see if there then you can swipe down on the Home screen to open Spotlight Search, then type the word “contacts” into the search field and choose the app from the search results.
Alternatively, you can tap on the i next to a number in your call history, then select the Create New Contact option. if you want to create a new contact from a number that texted you then you can tap on the number at the top of the text message, choose the info option, then select Create New Contact.
When you are in the Contacts settings menu you are going to see an option for Display Order as well. This affects how the contacts are shown when you are sorting through them in your contact list. You also have the option to choose between showing them with their first or last name displayed first.
Matthew Burleigh has been writing technology how-to articles and tutorials for over a decade. He has extensive experience in information technology both in small business and as a consultant.
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