How To Sort Contacts by First Name on an iPhone

Have you saved contacts randomly on your iPhone and now want these to be sorted with the first name? Luckily, you can do this without much effort.

To help you with the task, we’ve compiled an extensive guide to show you how to sort contacts by first name on iPhone. We will also discuss ways to fix when you cannot locate all contacts on the list. 

Sorting Contacts by First Name on an iPhone

If you don’t know how to sort contacts by first name on your iPhone, our step-by-step method will help you do it without difficulty.

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap “Contacts.”
3. Tap “Sort Order.”
4. Select “First, Last” to sort all contacts in this order. 

Are Sorted Contacts Not Showing on Your iPhone? 

Try these troubleshooting methods if you are still looking for some contacts on the list, even after sorting them.

Fix #1: Restarting Your iPhone 

The first thing to fix the issue with contacts is restarting your iPhone in the following way.

1. Press the volume up and down and side buttons and keep holding. 
2. You will see a power-off slider on the screen; swipe right the slider to power off. 
3. Turn the phone back on and see if you can see the sorted contact.  

Fix #2: Enabling “Show All Contacts”

Another quick fix is to enable “Show All Contacts” on the Phone and Contacts app using these steps. 

1. Open the Phone app. 
2. Tap “Groups.”
3. Scroll down to the bottom 
4. Tap “Show All Contacts.”
   
5. Tap “Done.”
6. Open the Contacts app and repeat similar steps to have all contacts in the list. 

Fix #3: Enabling Contacts From All Email Accounts 

You can also fix the contacts not showing issues by enabling them from all email accounts if you have multiple email accounts synced to your iPhone, following quick steps. 

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap “Mail.”
3. Tap “Accounts.”
4. Tap each account name to check the entry for “Contacts.”
5. Enable “Contacts” in each account; you can see contacts saved on these accounts in your phone’s list. 

Fix #4: Turning Off Short Name

Another way to make your sorted contacts appear on the list is by turning off the Short Name feature using quick steps. 

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap “Contacts.”
3. Tap “Short Name.”
4. Swipe the “Short Name” button to the left to turn off the feature.

By turning it off, you can see all contacts with full names on your list that are less confusing. 

Fix #5: Resyncing iCloud 

It is possible to access all contacts on your iPhone by resyncing with iCloud in the following way. 

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap your account name. 
3. Open iCloud.
4. Turn off the “Contacts” button.
   
5. Tap “Keep on My iPhone” from the pop-up.
6. Turn on the “Contacts” button and tap the “Merge” option to sync your iPhone’s contacts with iCloud.

Now you can see the missing contacts once syncing is completed. 

Summary 

In this guide, we’ve discussed sorting contacts by the first name on your iPhone using the Settings app. We’ve also discussed some methods to fix the issue when you cannot find a few or all sorted contacts in the list. 

Hopefully, your question has been answered in this article, and you can use the first name of your contacts to find them quickly on your phone.  

Frequently Asked Questions