Little-known reason why contact names on your iPhone are turning red

If you have noticed that the contact names on your iPhone are turning red, it turns out that there is a little known reason why.

iMessage comes with a lot of handy features as part of Apple’s messaging service.

The app includes things like inline replies, read receipts and message reactions, among others to make the user experience more smooth.

However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t flaws that pop up from time to time, with one being that contact names might start to appear red while using the iMessage app on your iPhone.

But why does it occur? It turns out that the most common reason for this happening is the ‘communications limit’.

iPhone users have found some contact names to appear in red on iMessage (Future Publishing via Getty Images)

This is a feature available in the Screen Time app and if you have restricted communications with a particular contact on your device then their name will appear in red on both your iMessage and in your recent calls list.

So, it might worth checking your Screen Time settings if you think someone has been restricted by accident.

Another reason a contact might be appearing in red could be down to having added someone into a group chat with their email address instead of their phone number.

But don’t panic because it’s a simple issue to fix.

How can you fix iMessage if a contact’s name is appearing in red?

If you need to remove the communication limit from your device then first off, head to your settings app.

From there, you can scroll down until you find Screen Time. Select it and hit Communications Limits.

Click During Screen Time followed by Everyone.

After choosing this, there shouldn’t be any contacts that appear in red on your phone.

There are simple ways to fix the issue on iMessage (Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

However, if you have added someone into a group chat through their email address and this is the reason why the contact is in red, then you’ll need to follow a different set of steps to amend it.

First, you’ll need to open the Contacts app on your device and select the contact name that appears to be red in iMessage.

From there, select Edit and click on the red minus icon in the left of the email address. This will remove the email from the contact information.

To save these changes, hit Done in the top right hand corner of the screen.

You can repeat this process for any contacts you have that appear to have the same issue.

Once saved, that contact will no longer appear in red on the messaging app.