How do I add custom labels in Contacts?

I have found a clunky workaround. I just enter a new contact on my iPhone. When you do that, custom label is available. It would take forever to do all my synced contacts like that, but it works. A lot of my synced contacts are messy anyway - "?" replaces an apostrophe, other random characters etc. I would love a way to be able to do all of them at once.

What version of iOS are you running?

I have the same issue and have been doing some comparisons to identify when the issue exists. 1st, both of my iphones (one a provided work phone 4s and a personal 5) are running ios 7.0.3. My personal iPhone phone 5 syncs with my Mac and icloud and has all of the possible labels including custom labels. My work phone 4s has a mixture of my work contacts which come from Outlook and exchange and my personal contacts for my Mac contacts app..

I have found that where the labeling originates impacts what I see on my work (exchange synced) phone. My contact info, as an example came from my Mac and I have 4 phone numbers Mobile, mobile, home, company. The first mobile is my work mobile number and when I look at the label options it only shows the limited list w/o custom labels, likewise for the company number. However, when I look at the label for my home and personal numbers, both of which came from my Mac, I see the extended labeling option including custom labels.

Since I have synced my contact information to both icloud and exchange I have all of my various labels no matter if I change my groups selections or not for contacts that origniated on my Mac.

Bottom line, it appears that if you want a more robust list of possible labels you need to originate your contacts on a Mac or other computer that does not have exchange or Outlook limitations and then sync them to your iPhone.

+1

I faced the same issue on iphone4s 6.1.3. Work phone sync to iCloud and Exchange.

In Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars, my default account for "Contacts" is Exchange.

Could not add custom labels to new/existing contacts.

I had to do this:-

- Tap on Groups (Top left)

- Tap on "All Exchange" (this disable viewing all Exchange contacts)

- Tap on "Done"

- You can add or edit iCloud contacts and "Add Custom Label" would appear...

When you are finished and want to see the Exchange contacts

- Tap on Groups (Top left)

- Tap on "All Exchange" (this enable viewing all Exchange contacts)

- Tap on "Done"

Note: Even if "All Exchange" is enabled, you can still access/add "Custom Labels" for contacts stored in iCloud. The only issue would be creating new Contacts which for my phone, goes by default to Exchange.

It may be that Exchange Contacts do not allow Custom Labels... preventing Additing/Editing...

Thanks for that! Same issue on 3gs 6.1.3

I'm not sure when, why, how my default contacts setting was set to 'exchange', but it was, and caused same issue, it turns out, for 17 of my contacts, which were evidently entered after the default was erroneously set to exchange.

Just an extra tidbit for others fwimbw:

Doing the Groups exercise Teddy mentions above worked the same for me.

Also, went into the Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and changed my default account for "Contacts" from "exchange" to "icloud" which solves the problem entirely for me going forward - ie. any contacts I add from now on automatically have the custom fields available.

That might be an obvious step from Teddy's post, but in case someone missed it, there it is.

I just met with the same problem, trying to add or delete custom labels in my two iOS7 iPads.

It does work in my iOS6 iPhone but not in the Pad.

What can I do to customize contact labels also in the iPads?

Karlotto

To add a custom label just touch the title field to the left of the phone number and a drop down menu appears. Touch ADD CUSTOM LABEL optio. Then type in what you want your label to be and then press RETURN on the keypad. Your label will change to what you have just typed in. I am not on iCoud and I have only had my iPad Mini a few weeks and it works. HOPE THIS HELPS EVERYONE WITH THIS PROBLEM.

Many thanks! Your instructions do work; what I had missed before was that one must press the RETURN-key

Sunny greetings from Sweden!

Karlotto

II've just discovered that if I select GROUPS (top left), disable my Hotmail account, I can then see the option of 'add custom label'. Some contacts might disappear, especially the one you want to change the label on, but just create a new contact, change the label, add some info, save, go back to GROUPS and reinstate Hotmail I can then re-edit the new contact and add the details I want.

I am having the same problem: I absolutely cannot Edit my Contacts labels to make a custom label. iCloud cleverly managed to drop two of my Contacts (one of them my son!), and my son's old Contacts entry had a label for "iPhone." It flat out doesn't exist any longer. Why?

All,

If you work on the Apple Contacts App (on a Mac OSX) you certainly have the possibility for Custom Labels.

Now I am working with Outlook AND Apple Contacts and sync with both.

If you define a Custom Label in Apple Contacts App. and sync to your iPhone in a separate group the Custom Label will show up in your iPhone Contacts display.

Hope this helps

I have only spouse, manager and assistant in my contact related name, and i cant add any other relationships, what can i do???