26-05-2025
Call History Made Easy: iOS 18's Search Bar Feature Explained
It can be frustrating to scroll through your iPhone's Recent calls tab to find the right voicemail or to remember when you talked to someone last. But with this iOS 18 trick, you can find that call faster in your recent call history.
Apple released iOS 18 in September, and the update included a lot of new features, like customizable home screens and RCS messaging. It also introduced a search bar in your iPhone's Phone app that lets you easily search your call history and voicemails. Before iOS 18, your Phone app's Recent calls tab was a running list of all the calls made to and from your iPhone. But now you can easily search through the list, so you aren't needlessly scrolling.
Read more: An Expert's Guide to iOS 18
Here's what to know about the search function in your iPhone's Recents tab.
Can I search recent calls on my iPhone?
Explaining why my spouse is saved in my iPhone as "El Hoppo" is a long story.
Apple/Screenshot by CNET
With iOS 18, yes. To search your recent calls, go to your Phone app and tap Recents across the bottom of the menu. Tap the search bar across the top of the page to open a new menu that shows the sections Calls and Voicemails. Both of these options also have the option to See All.
You can use the search bar to search for a specific contact's name, a contact's number or dates. For example, typing "mom" or "dad" pulls up all the phone calls and voicemails from your mom or dad, as well as their contact card. Similarly, typing "August" or "July" into the search bar pulls up all calls and voicemails from that month.
You can also type a specific date, like "July 5," and that pulls up calls and voicemails from that particular date.
For more on iOS 18, here's all the features included in iOS 18.5 and iOS 18.4. You can also check out our iOS 18 cheat sheet and what we hope to see in iOS 19.
