How to identify the specific number used by a known contact?

Good morning!

My eyes have seen 78 autumns so I doubt the this the issue. On my iPhone SE2020 running iOS 26.1, I see this in "Recents"when the Phone app is open:

Each shows under the name of number which of their numbers they used, as shown in my Contacts app listing for each person.

The call from "JY" is from a guy who has three numbers in my contacts: an office land line; an employer-issued cell phone; and his personal cell phone. In Contacts I listed his personal phone as "mobile," and that is what showed up in "Recents' in the Phone app.

Might look in Contacts to see if you have taken advantage of using categories with phone number entries. Note that, when creating or editing a contact, you get a new category option each time you tap "add phone."

In ios18, in Recents, there was a little label "Recent" next to the most recent number used between the caller and yourself. That has been removed, is all I am saying

Having them labelled Mobile, Home, Work, can replace that IF one has taken the trouble befotehand to use those labels. Furthermore if they have more than one mobile or work number it does not help.

However, You are correct that the little label "Recent" against the latest number used by the contact was removed in iOS26

if you want it back write a feature request https://apple.com/feedback

LD150,

You are correct that the little label "Recent" against the latest number used by the contact was removed in iOS26

FYI, the screenshots I posted were from 26.1. Fully updated SE 2020.

Based on OP's last post, I suspect the problem is Outlook contacts not talking to Apple Contacts.

Donot_Haveone wrote:

my campus version of Outlook does not allow me to individually label phone numbers so there are only six or seven ways to label a number before you have to repeat them.

Thats why I suggested using native iOS Contacts app.

I just turned off iCloud account and turned on my Outlook account in Settings, Apps, Contacts, Contacts accounts to test it. (remember to use the Delete from my phone option when turning accounts off)

I really hate the Outlook app. Even though I am Outlook based I use native Mail and Contacts appd

I really need this too - I have decades of information and hundreds of numbers, and have already wasted too many days of my life trying to categorize and manage information labels that gets lost every other upgrade. The "Recent" was a simple easy piece of information that let me know which number was most current, so if I needed to write it down, or give to someone else as part of a transaction, I could do it without spending too much time on it. It just worked. Now I am having a hard time seeing which number people are texting from. It's a partial security issue too. I don't want to just see the name, I want the number or email source as well.

danellem wrote:

I really need this too - I have decades of information and hundreds of numbers, and have already wasted too many days of my life trying to categorize and manage information labels that gets lost every other upgrade. The "Recent" was a simple easy piece of information that let me know which number was most current, so if I needed to write it down, or give to someone else as part of a transaction, I could do it without spending too much time on it. It just worked. Now I am having a hard time seeing which number people are texting from. It's a partial security issue too. I don't want to just see the name, I want the number or email source as well.

I have seen one post with screen shots showing 26.2 brought it back, but not for me.

Ask Apple for it back https://apple.com/feedback

Asked, but it's confusing to ask for I think. Hard enough for me to describe what was missing when I went looking for someone's number and realized that I couldn't see which one I used for texting just by going to the "i" Info and looking for the Recent label. When I tried to search for the problem, it kept returning searches for mac ios and messages rather than IOS. It's all getting to be too many words that mean specific things to some people but not all, so confusion is really easy. It's not reasonable to expect people to relabel or re-categorize their contact info after a while. My paper filofax is looking easier to use lately. lol

danellem wrote:

Asked, but it's confusing to ask for I think. Hard enough for me to describe what was missing when I went looking for someone's number and realized that I couldn't see which one I used for texting just by going to the "i" Info and looking for the Recent label. When I tried to search for the problem, it kept returning searches for mac ios and messages rather than IOS. It's all getting to be too many words that mean specific things to some people but not all, so confusion is really easy. It's not reasonable to expect people to relabel or re-categorize their contact info after a while. My paper filofax is looking easier to use lately. lol

It is assumed (by Apple I think) that we all assign unique labels such ad Mobile, Work, Home or custom labels to each of their numbers, which do show.

If you use ios contacts app to manage your Outlook contacts you get the same options.

I don't use outlook at all.

you could open contacts, click the person’s contact (ex. James) and it would show their Phone numbers that you set, you can also open messages, click info, and see their numbers