Don’t Remember Someone’s Number? Here’s How to Use T9 Dialing on iPhone Instead

I don't know my wife's phone number. If I needed to call her and I didn't have my iPhone, I wouldn't be able to contact her. And according to a survey conducted WhistleExitI'm not alone. About 17% of respondents said they did not know their partner's phone number, and less than 20% of respondents said they knew more than six phone numbers. But if you need to call your iPhoneyou can use T9 dialing to find a contact's name instead of remembering their number.

Apple introduced T9 dialing to all iPhones as the tech giant released iOS 18 in 2024. With T9 dialer, you can call someone by simply entering their name in the Phone app on your iPhone. This means you don't have to remember phone numbers or look them up in Contacts to call them.

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Here's everything you need to know about T9 dialer and how to use it on your iPhone.

What is T9 dialing?

T9 means text on nine keys. Before mobile phones had full keyboards, many phones had 12 keys. These were the numbers zero to nine, a star and a pound sign or hashtag. I felt old just writing this. And to text someone, you basically used nine number keys. Each numbered key had three or four corresponding letters attached to it, with the zero key being a space and the one being a blank.

If you go to the Phone app and tap “Keyboard” at the bottom of the screen, you'll see the corresponding numbers and letters there. At first, if you wanted to dial “hello”, you had to press 44(H)-33(E)-555(L)-555(L)-666(0). One fairly short word requires a lot of typing. T9 text messaging was introduced as an early form of predictive typing. This allows you to press fewer keys and send messages faster. So for “hello” you would dial 4-3-5-5-6. Much easier.

How to Use T9 Dialer on iPhone

In iOS 18, you can now use T9 dialing to make calls. Here's how.

1. Open the Call app on your iPhone.
2. Tap Keyboard at the bottom of the screen.

From here, start typing the name of the person you want to call using T9 principles. So if you want to call your dad, you have to dial 3-2-3 on the keypad, and if you want to call your mom, you have to dial 6-6-6, but that's okay, I promise. Their name should appear at the top of the screen. As you type, a back button will appear below the pound sign/hashtag if you make a mistake. Click on it as many times as necessary. Note that there is no space bar here. Once you find a person, tap their name and their phone number will be entered automatically. Then press the green call button and you're done.

If you have more than one person with a specific name in your Contacts app, as you type, you'll see an option below the top result that says something like “3 more…”. Click on it to open a new menu with all relevant contacts. Then tap the call button next to the desired contact and your call will begin immediately. Be prepared to explain why you are calling the other person rather than just texting them.

More iOS news can be found here. my review of iOS 26and also how to reduce Liquid glass effects and how to do it block spam calls in the update. You can also check out our iOS 26 cheat sheet.

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