Learn How iPhone Favorites Feature Works Best

Understanding iPhone Favorites: What This Feature Does

The iPhone Favorites feature is a built-in function that lets you mark specific contacts, locations, or numbers as priority items on your device. This feature appears across multiple iPhone apps and services, including Phone, Messages, Maps, and Mail. When you mark something as a favorite, it typically appears in a dedicated section or gets faster access through shortcuts, making those items easier to find and use compared to scrolling through your entire contact list or search results.

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Apple introduced favorites functionality to help users streamline their daily phone usage. According to Apple's iOS documentation, approximately 80% of daily phone calls go to a small group of recurring contacts. The Favorites feature recognizes this pattern and puts those important connections right at your fingertips. Rather than digging through hundreds of contacts every time you want to call your mom or message your work team, you can reach them with just one or two taps.

The feature works differently depending on which app you're using. In the Phone app, your favorites appear as a tab showing contacts you've starred. In Messages, favorited conversations float to the top of your message thread list. In Maps, your favorite locations save both home and work addresses along with other places you frequent. Each app uses the favorites system in ways that match how people naturally use that particular tool.

One important thing to understand is that marking something as a favorite on one app doesn't automatically mark it as a favorite everywhere. Your Phone app favorites are separate from your Mail app favorites. This separation actually gives you more control—you might want your favorite contacts for calling to be different from your favorite email addresses, for example.

Practical Takeaway: Before you can make the most of iPhone Favorites, you need to understand where this feature lives across your phone. Take time to explore the Phone, Messages, Maps, and Mail apps to see where the favorites sections appear. This foundation will help you use the feature strategically across your daily activities.

How to Add Contacts to Phone Favorites

Adding a contact to your Phone app favorites is one of the quickest processes on iOS. Open the Phone app and navigate to the Contacts tab at the bottom of the screen. Find the person you want to mark as a favorite by scrolling or searching using the search bar at the top. Once you've located the contact, tap on their name to open their contact card. At the top of the contact card, you'll see a star icon—tap this star, and it will turn solid, indicating that person is now a favorite.

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Another route to the same result is opening the Favorites tab directly in the Phone app. You'll see a "+" button in the upper left corner. Tapping this opens your full contact list, and you can select any contact to add them to Favorites. Some people prefer this method because they stay focused on the Favorites tab throughout the process, seeing immediately where their new favorite appears among their other starred contacts.

The order of your favorites matters because they appear in the sequence you created or modified them. However, you can rearrange your favorites list by tapping "Edit" in the upper left corner of the Favorites tab. Once in edit mode, you'll see three horizontal lines (called a handle) next to each contact name. Press and hold these lines, then drag the contact up or down to reorder them. You might want to put your most frequently called person at the top, followed by family members, then work contacts. This arrangement saves you time when you're making quick calls.

If you want to remove someone from Phone Favorites, open the contact's card and tap the star icon again—it will return to an outline style, removing them from favorites. Alternatively, in edit mode on the Favorites tab, tap the red minus sign next to a contact name and then confirm the removal. Removing someone from favorites doesn't delete their contact information; they simply move back to your regular contacts list.

Practical Takeaway: Start by adding five to ten of your most frequently contacted people to Phone Favorites. Use the drag-to-reorder feature to arrange them by how often you call them. This creates a customized calling interface that matches your real communication patterns.

Managing Favorites in Messages and FaceTime

The Messages app handles favorites slightly differently than the Phone app. Rather than a dedicated Favorites tab, you can pin conversations to the top of your message thread list. Open the Messages app and look at your list of conversations. Press and hold (or swipe left on) a conversation thread you want to prioritize. A menu appears with several options, including one to "Pin." Tap this option, and that conversation will move to the top of your Messages list, above all unpinned threads. You can pin up to nine conversations in the Messages app.

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Pinning conversations in Messages serves a similar purpose to Phone Favorites—it puts your most important ongoing conversations right where you can see them instantly. If you're coordinating a group project with coworkers, have an ongoing conversation with a family member about planning a vacation, or regularly message your partner throughout the day, pinning those conversations keeps them visible without scrolling. When you open Messages, you immediately see your pinned conversations before any others.

The order of pinned conversations can be rearranged. While the Messages app doesn't have a dedicated edit mode like Phone does, you can long-press on a pinned conversation and select "Pin" again to unpin it, then re-pin conversations in your preferred order. Unpinning doesn't delete the conversation—it simply returns it to the regular list below your pinned threads, sorted by most recent activity.

FaceTime has a similar favorites system. In the FaceTime app, open the Favorites tab and use the "+" button to add contacts. You can create favorites for both audio and video calls. Tap the contact name to place the call type you want. Just like Phone Favorites, you can long-press on any favorite to edit or remove it. Some people maintain separate favorites in FaceTime compared to Phone because they might video call certain people regularly but never call them by phone, or vice versa.

Practical Takeaway: In Messages, identify the three to five conversation threads you interact with most frequently and pin them. In FaceTime, add the people you video call most often. This creates multiple shortcuts to your most important communication channels across different apps.

Using Favorites in Maps and Location Services

Maps favorites work differently from contact-based favorites because they save physical locations rather than people. Open Apple Maps and search for a location you visit often—perhaps your home, workplace, gym, or a favorite restaurant. Once you've found the location, tap on it to open the location card. You'll see a star icon near the top of the card. Tap this star to save the location as a favorite. The star will turn solid, and the location is now saved in your Favorites.

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Accessing your Maps Favorites is straightforward. In the Maps app, tap the Bookmarks icon (it looks like a bookmark ribbon) at the bottom of the screen. Your saved locations appear in a list under the Favorites section. You can quickly navigate to any of these places by tapping on them—Maps will immediately start providing directions. This is particularly useful for routine trips. If you go to the same gym, grocery store, or office location multiple times weekly, having it in Favorites saves you the step of searching for the address each time.

Many iPhone users save their home and work addresses as favorites because Siri can reference these locations. When you've set a home address in Favorites, you can ask Siri "Navigate home," and Maps will open directions without you specifying the address. The same applies to a work address. This voice command integration makes Maps Favorites valuable for hands-free navigation while driving.

You can also organize your Maps Favorites by creating custom lists. Tap "Bookmarks" and then tap "Edit" in the upper left corner. Create new lists for different categories—perhaps "Restaurants," "Fitness," or "Shopping." Then move your saved locations into these lists by editing them. This organization becomes more valuable as your favorites list grows beyond five or six locations. If you've saved fifteen restaurants as favorites, organizing them into categories makes finding the one you want much faster than scrolling through a single long list.

Practical Takeaway: Save your most-visited locations—home, work, and one or two places you go weekly—as Maps Favorites. Enable home and work addresses so Siri can navigate for you using voice commands. If you've saved more than five locations, create custom lists to organize them by category.

Tips for Organizing and Maintaining Your Favorites