iPhone does not have a dedicated native app that can hide contacts or provide an easy way to prevent contact name from appearing on your iPhone. However, you can still manage to hide contacts on your iPhone by using the steps as described below.
Hide Contacts On iPhone Using Nicknames
One way of hiding contacts on your iPhone is to give your contact a nickname that only you can relate to and anyone else snooping on your iPhone will have no clue about.
Follow the steps below to add a Nickname to your contacts
1. Open the Contacts App on your iPhone
2. Tap on the Contact that you want to give a nickname to.
3. On the contacts page, tap on the Edit button.
4. After tapping on Edit, scroll down all the way to the bottom of the page and tap on Add Field.
5. On the next screen (Add Field), tap on Nickname and this new field will be added to your contact’s basic details.
6. Now, scroll up to the top of the screen, type a Nickname for your contact in the newly added Nickname Field and tap on Done to save this new entry.
From now, your iPhone will only display the Nickname for this contact, whenever you are talking to or sending a text message to this particular contact.
Anyone snooping on your iPhone will see the Nickname of this contact and won’t be able to tell who you are speaking to or interacting with via text messages.
Hide Contacts From Spotlight Search
As an added precaution, you should always consider disabling Contacts and Phone numbers from appearing in the search results of your iPhone’s Spotlight Search.
This will rule out the possibility of your hidden contact’s name or phone number from appearing in Spotlight search in case anyone with access to your iPhone decides to go snoopy by performing a Spotlight Search on your iPhone.
Follow the steps below to disable Contacts and Phone from appearing in Spotlight Search
1. From the home screen of your iPhone tap on Settings
2. Next, tap on General > Spotlight Search
3. Now, on the spotlight search screen look for Contacts and move the Slider to OFF Position to prevent Contact names from showing up in Spotlight search.
4. Similarly, look for Phone and move the slider to OFF position to prevent phone numbers from showing up in Spotlight Search.
Hide Contacts by Creating Hidden Group
Another way of hiding contacts on your iPhone is to create a new Contact group (Say Hidden Group) on your iPhone, delete the contacts that you want to hide from your iPhone and add back the contacts to this new Hidden Contact Group.
1. Using a PC go to www.icloud.com and sign into your iCloud account
2. Once in your iCloud Account, click on Contacts
3. Next, click on the + icon from the bottom left corner of your screen and click on New Group (See image below)
4. You will see a new group with the name Untitled Group 1 appearing on the screen.
5. Type the Name for this New Contact Group and hit enter or click outside the box to save this new Contact Group.
After creating a new contact Group, the next step is to delete the contact that you want to hide from your iPhone and then add back the Contact to the New Contact Group.
Note: For this method to work, you absolutely need to first Delete the Contact from your Contacts list on iPhone before adding it back to the New Hidden Group.
1. Open the Contacts app on your iPhone.
2. Next, tap on the Contact that you want to Hide
3. Tap and Hold on the Contacts Phone Number and then tap on Copy
Note: In this step we are trying to copy the Contacts phone number in order to paste it in the New Group.
4. Next, tap on Delete Contact to delete the Contact from your Default Contacts List on iPhone
5. Now, tap on Groups from the top left Corner of your screen
6. Next tap on the Hidden Group that you just created and then tap on Done.
7. Next tap on the + sign from the top right corner of your screen
8. Enter Contact’s Name and paste the phone number that you had copied in step #3 above, then tap on Done
9. Now, tap on Groups > Show all Contacts > Done. Now, you can repeat the steps above to move other Contacts that you want to hide to the hidden group.
10. Once you have transferred all the Contacts to the new Group, uncheck the Hidden Group by tapping on it, and then tap on All Contacts option.
Note: In your case All Contacts option may appear as All Hotmail, if you are using Hotmail, or All Gmail if you are using Gmail and so on depending on whichever Email client is associated with your iPhone.
Hide All Contacts on iPhone
In case you do not want to go through the hassle of creating a new hidden group, you can hide all Contacts on your iPhone from displaying in the Contacts app.
1. Open Contacts app
2. Tap on Groups from the top left Corner
3. Now tap on Hide all Contacts and then tap on Done from the top right corner of your screen.