How to put emergency contacts on iPhone Lock Screen

This can be especially helpful if you are involved in an accident like say, a car crash and lose consciousness. You should always ensure that there is a way for authorities to contact your loved ones and let them know your situation.

Equally important is that first aid responders also have access to your medical history. This is very critical especially if you suffer from any allergies or require any kind of special first aid. Having the right information at the onset, helps first responders to be able to give you the right medical treatment and to ensure that there are no complications otherwise. 

What is an Emergency Contact on iPhone?

Apple has come a long way in ensuring that your safety is never comprised. While, it does have stringent security checks, like Face ID and strong passcodes, to help protect your data, Apple is also cognisant of the fact that sometimes your critical information is needed and you just might not be in a position to give it yourself.

This is where Medical Id comes into the picture.

Apple provides a solution where in you can put your medical information and the contact details of your loved ones on the Lock Screen. This information can be accessed by anyone without risking any of your other data or compromising your privacy. 

This way, your loved ones are the first to be contacted in an emergency, so that they are aware of your situation, and your medical information can also be accessed by the concerned people, in order to give you the right medical aid.

Related: Have an Android mobile? Have you added your medical info on its lock screen?

How to add an Emergency Contact to your iPhone Lock Screen

It is pretty simple to add your loved ones’ contact details as an emergency contact on your iPhone.

Here is how:

If you are on IOS 14 and above:

1. Head to Settings.
2. Scroll down to Health app and Tap on it.
3. Tap on Medical ID.
4. Tap on Edit.
5. You can now add your Emergency Contact details and also fill in your medical information.
6. Tap on Done when you have finished adding your details

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If you are an older version of  IOS, i.e IOS  14 and below:

1. Open the Health app on your iPhone.
2. Tap on your profile pic on the top right.
3. Tap on Medical ID.
4. Tap on Edit on the top right.
5. Enter your information under Emergency Contacts.
6. Tap on Done when you have finished.

And that’s it, you are good to go now. 

Note: It’s always advisable to add at least 2 or more contacts as emergency contacts. This is advised, just in case, somebody’s phone is switched off or they cannot pick up the phone. Hence always add at least one backup to your Emergency Contact.

How to Add Medical Information to Your iPhone Lock Screen

Similar to adding Emergency Contacts on iPhone Lock Screen, you can also add your medical information to your iPhone Lock Screen.

This is particularly helpful for first aid responders. This is also very useful when you have to pull up your all health information and display it to a doctor. As this information contains all your medical history and the medications you are currently on, it becomes easier for a medical practitioner to be able to have all the information at a glance.

You can also add information such as Medical Notes or any Allergies or Reactions that you may have. 

Here is how to add medical information to your iPhone Lock Screen:

1. Open the Health app on your iPhone.
2. Tap on your profile pic on the top right.
3. Tap on Medical ID.
4. Tap on Edit on the top right.
5. Enter your information under the Medical Conditions tab.
6. Also, enter any medications that you may be taking currently.
7. Tap on Done when you have finished.

How to enable Emergency Access on Lock Screen

With the above steps, you have now entered all your emergency contacts and your medical information in the Medical Id tab in the Health App. However, you need to enable this so that this information is easily accessed on your lock Screen.

Here is how:

1. Open Health App
2. Tap on your profile pic.
3. Tap on Medical Id.
4. Tap on Edit in the top right corner.
5. Scroll all the way down, and enable Show When Locked.

Now, your emergency contact details and your medical information would be easily accessed from the lock Screen.

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How to access Emergency SOS on iPhone Lock Screen

It is very simple to access your Emergency Data on Lock Screen.

If your iPhone is locked, simply swipe up from the bottom of the screen, this will display the keypad for entering the passcode.

You can now make calls to emergency services like 911.

Towards the bottom left, tap on emergency, then tap on Medical ID on the bottom left.

This will display your medical info as well as show your emergency contacts. A call then can be made to your emergency contacts.

How to send Emergency SOS on Apple iPhone and Apple Watch

If you’ve ever had an emergency and needed to call 911, you know how frustrating it can be. When most people reach for their phone and see the “911” icon, they expect to be able to quickly and easily contact emergency services. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.

That’s where Emergency SOS comes in. It’s a feature that allows you to send a message to emergency services without having to unlock your phone or even dial numbers yourself.

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How does Emergency SOS on iPhone work?

First, go into your Settings app on your iPhone and then select Emergency SOS. You’ll see three options:

Send SOS only – If this is selected, only one single SOS message will be sent out from your phone. Note that there are no other options here but “SOS.”

Send SOS + Location – This option allows users to choose whether or not they want their location included in the message being sent out to emergency services. If selected, users will see a green dot on their map showing where they are at any given time when sending an SOS message via Emergency SOS.

Call Emergency– This option allows you to call emergency services directly. This will also send an SMS along with your location to emergency services.

In some countries and regions, you might need to choose the service that you need. For example, in China mainland, you can choose which emergency service needs to be notified- police, fire, or ambulance.

You can also choose whether you want the mobile to play a Countdown Sound, when an emergency SOS is triggered, by toggling on or off the tab.

Your mobile will send your current location, and for a period of time, after you enter SOS mode, your emergency contacts will continue to receive updates when your location changes. 

How to send Emergency SOS on iPhone

There are two easy ways to trigger Emergency SOS.

First Method-

1. Press and hold the side button and any one of the Volume buttons, either Volume Up or Volume Down, button at the same time until the Emergency SOS slider appears.
2. Drag the Emergency SOS slider to call emergency services.

Second Method-

1. Press the side button quickly 5 times.
2. This will trigger the Emergency SOS and a countdown will appear on your screen. 

After that, your emergency SOS will be sent.

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How to send Emergency SOS on the Apple Watch

In case, you want to send an Emergency SOS from your Apple watch, then just press and hold the side button until the emergency SOS slider appears on your watch.

Slide the slider to send Emergency SOS. 

How to cancel Emergency SOS on iPhone

If you have accidentally triggered or entered the Emergency SOS mode, and you want to cancel it, then make sure that you press the cancel option during the countdown timer.

If the call has already been placed, then just hit the hang-up button, and the call will be ended.

Wrapping Up

To wrap it up, I would just like to reiterate it is very crucial that you add your emergency contacts and your medical information on your iPhone lock screen.

It’s better to have the information and not need it than to not have it and regret it later.

After all, it could be a matter of life or death someday.