Add Contact Pictures Using the Facebook iPhone App

2008 July 13
by campo

With the release of the iPhone/iPod Touch App Store and the new Facebook App for iPhone, there’s a cool new way to update the contact pictures for you friends, that’s both quick and pretty easy.  Here’s a quick run through of how to do this on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

First you’ll want to have the Facebook App installed.  Here it’s located in the top left corner so let’s touch it to launch the Facebook App.

iPhone Home Screen

Once you’re in the facebook app you can just touch the friends icon at the bottom of the screen to view a list of all your facebook friends.  I want to add a contact photo for my buddy Andrew Mager, so I’ll touch his name to bring up his facebook profile.

Facebook Friends List

No we see Andrew’s profile page, where I can get his current status, chat with him, send him a message, or find his phone number.  It’s too bad I can’t write on his facebook wall, that is a terrible mistake by facebook and I can’t believe they didn’t add that functionality to this app.  I suppose we’ll have to wait for an update to post on people’s walls.  Here I just touch Andrew’s photo to bring up pictures of him.

Andrew Mager\'s Facebook Profile

Once you’re looking at pictures, you can just flick your finger across the screen right or left to look through all the different photos of your friend.  I’m want to set this picture of Andrew as his contact photo on my iPhone.  Once you’ve found the photo you want, just hold the round home button at the bottom of your iPhone and press the power/sleep button on the top of the iPhone.  This will make the screen flash white and take a screen capture of the photo.

Andrew Mager

Now let’s go back to the iPhone home screen, just press the round home button.  To add Andrew’s picture to his contact info on the iPhone just touch the Contacts icon.

iPhone Home Screen

In the Contact listing scroll to find Andrew Mager and touch his name.

iPhone Contacts List

Now you can see Andrew’s contact info listed on the screen, touch the edit button on the top right to make changes or add info.

Andrew Mager Contact Entry

Near the top left of the info screen you can now see a square that says “Add Photo.” Touch it to add Andrew’s photo.

Edit Andrew Mager\'s Contact Info

We’ve already captured Andrew’s photo from the Facebook App so touch “Choose Exisiting Photo”

Choose Existing Photo

Touch Camera Roll to see all the photos and screen captures you’ve taken on your iPhone.

Camera Roll

Find the image you want to use for Andrew’s contact info.  He’s the third picture on the top row, touch it to select the photo.

Camera Roll Gallery

Now just touch to move the photo around and pinch to contract or expand the photo just the way you want it to appear and touch Set Photo

Move and Scale

Now we see Andrew’s picture in his contact info page and we’re all done.

Done Editing Andrew Mager\'s Contact Info

Now you’ll see this the next time you have an incoming phone call from Andrew Mager!

Incoming Call From Andrew Mager

24 Responses leave one →
  1. July 13, 2008

    This is a really cool trick.

    Thanks for using me a test case. I look scary and in charge in that picture :)

  2. July 13, 2008

    Great idea, man! Now I just need an iPhone.

  3. July 13, 2008

    you can still add the contact pics on your iPod Touch!

  4. July 13, 2008

    I suppose, but then I don’t get to see a scary Mager face when I get phone calls. I’ll get out of this US Cellular contract next month, will have to wait till then.

  5. Mike permalink
    July 13, 2008

    You need better-looking friends.

  6. July 14, 2008

    WOW! I had no idea you could take a screen shot like that. Fantastic! Thanks so much.

  7. Paul permalink
    July 15, 2008

    how do you get rid of facebook’s comments icon in the lower right of the picture???

  8. July 15, 2008

    just use the pinch/expand gesture to zoom in on the photo so the comment icon is off the screen. The comment icon also tends to get covered up by the decline/answer buttons that are displayed during an incoming call.

  9. Kevin permalink
    October 10, 2008

    Another way … if you browse photos on the safari browser … You can hold finger on the photo to “save it”. They should have that on the Facebook app … maybe as an update.

    Another suggestion for Apple … They should have the contact list show thumbnails fo pictures … or show the contact list like album cover art with the text over the picture for email/phone … that would be KILLER.

  10. November 11, 2008

    brilliant, thanks!

  11. Ati permalink
    November 20, 2008

    I took a photo from Contact directly using “Take photo” option. Could i sve this picture to the Camera roll or library or email it?
    Thanks

  12. ghiles234 permalink
    December 31, 2008

    Thanks so much it worked great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  13. January 1, 2009

    http://www.omnigensolutions.com/friendsync/ this app called FriendSync does this entire process automatically. You can even sync birthdays and fix the first and last names! It’s so cool!!

  14. Mike permalink
    April 22, 2009

    MyPhone+ syncs the pictures and birthdays from Facebook automatically!

    http://www.ultimake.com/myphone

  15. deb troche permalink
    May 15, 2009

    Does the contact photo you assign to someone on iphone email to other people? I noticed that the picture I have for my husband pops up on his emails on the computer and I want to make sure it doesn’t email to others.

  16. May 15, 2009

    No, that’s just because you connected your iPhone to your computer and it synced your contact photos to those people in Address Book. It then uses that photo to show a picture of the person when you receive an email from them. That change should be local and only viewable on your machine.

  17. Indie Goddess permalink
    June 22, 2009

    Thank you SO much. I had NO idea how to do this and was so pissed cause in 3.0/ the iPhone 3GS you can’t “copy/paste” the photos like they said you could could copy/paste ANYTHING, and so I was all crazy trying to get it to work… Thank you so much for sharing this tip. Hopefully I won’t almost turn off the phone again like I did the first time I tried it.

    Does this take pics of any screen when you do it? Any other neat tips/tricks?

    Again, much appreciation.
    Díos le bendiga!

  18. June 22, 2009

    I’m glad you found it helpful. Yes, the screenshot will work for any screen. You’ll get better at not shutting off your phone as you practice :-) (you shouldn’t need to hold the buttons down that long, hold one and just press the other and it should work). If there’s anything else you’d like to know just let me know, and thanks for the good wishes.

  19. Bruce permalink
    July 24, 2009

    I’m getting the impression that the only way I’m going to get my Entourage contact pictures onto the iphone is to put them in iphoto, then send them to my .me account, then bring them into my iphone where I can then “assign” them.

    This should work but is there another way? I DO NOT use the address book or imail.

    Thanks,

  20. Amy permalink
    August 17, 2009

    This is fantastic! But tell me… how do I FIND the images loaded onto my iphone contacts. For example, when my iphone was synced, the contact photos from my old phone followed… but I can’t, for the life of me, find the images on the iphone. Well, aside from seeing them in the contacts…

  21. Mike permalink
    October 5, 2009

    Does this still work with the new iPhone/Touch firmware (3.1.1)?

  22. dwen permalink
    December 17, 2009

    WOW CAMPO! YOU ARE AMAZING!

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