iPhone contacts stuck in Lists

Contacts are organized into “lists”. You have always had a contact list or lists. The older iOS version hid that information from you. But lists are a fact of life for all systems that support contacts. It was really frustrating, because you could see your contact lists on a Mac or Windows PC, (or even on an Android) but not on your iPhone.

In rare cases you may have only one contact list. If that is the case just tap on the name of the list ONCE, and forevermore those contacts will appear when you open the Contacts app. If you have more than one list just tap on All Contacts.

As you mentioned work, business or live in a town you can create a list for “work”, “business”, “town” or any other subject (“doctors”, “restaurants”, etc). You can then move contacts from one list to another, or even have the same contact on more than one list.

Or tap the Phone icon, then Contacts; that will always show all contacts on all of your lists.

This isn’t dumbing down. The OLD way, where you couldn’t see your lists, even though they existed and were hidden, was dumbed down.