How to customize the privacy of your Contact Photo and Poster on iPhone with iOS 17: iOS 17 enables you to set a name, an emoji, or a personal photo as your contact photo and poster for iPhone users who attempt to contact you.
By default, your new contact’s photo and poster are shared with all of your iPhone’s contacts.
To restrict who can view your most recent contact photo and poster, you can modify its privacy settings from “Contacts Only” to “Always Ask” to authorise which contacts can view your name and photo. You can also permanently disable photo sharing within your contacts card to prevent anyone from sharing your name and photo.
On iOS 17, who can glimpse your Contact Photo and Poster?
iOS 17 enables you to customise how you appear on another iPhone whenever you call or message them. To be displayed as your contact photo and poster, you can select a Memoji, a plain text, or a custom photo with effects. On your contact card, you can easily swap between different profiles and modify your photo and poster at any time.
In addition to allowing you to select your preferred contact photo and poster, the new update also enables you to modify who can view and access your new photo and poster. You can choose to share them with contacts on your iPhone, or you can configure it to prompt you each time you interface with a contact. You may also disable name and photo sharing permanently to prevent others from viewing your updated photo or poster.
Setting Contact Photos and Posters on iOS 17: Personalize Your Contacts
How to customize the privacy of your Contact Photo and Poster on iPhone with iOS 17
Ensure that your iPhone is running iOS 17 or later by navigating to Settings > General > Software Update.
Note: At the time of writing, iOS 17 is only available as a developer preview; therefore, we recommend that you wait for a beta or public release to prevent software issues.
To modify the privacy settings for Contact Photos and Posters, launch the Contacts app on your iPhone.
Tap your name or My Card at the top of Contacts.
The photo and name of your most recent contact should appear on the following screen. To set its privacy settings, tap Contact Photo & Poster on this display.
On the subsequent screen, you can view a preview of your current photo and poster at the top and configure who to share your photo and poster with or disable photo sharing entirely.
To modify who can see your name, photo, and poster, select one of the two options available under “Share Automatically”:
This is the default configuration when you add a photo and poster to your contact card for the first time on iOS 17. When you select this option, your contact photo and poster are shared with all of your iPhone’s contacts.
Always Ask: If you do not want to share your contact’s photo and poster with all of your contacts but still want fine-grained control over who can see them, select Always Ask under “Share Automatically.” When you are about to interact with a contact on your iPhone, you will be prompted to decide whether or not to share your new identity, photo, and poster.
If you do not wish to share your photo and poster with anyone, including your contacts, you can deactivate the Name & Photo Sharing switch on this screen. This will disable your current profile photo and poster for all contacts.
What happens when the Contact Photo and Poster privacy settings are modified?
When you initially designate a Contact Photo and Poster for your contact card in iOS 17, the new photo and poster you select will be visible to anyone whose contact information has been saved on your device. Change your Contact Photo and Poster privacy settings to “Contacts Only” for your contact card to achieve the same result.
If you changed your photo and poster privacy settings to “Always Ask,” your contacts would not be able to view your updated photos automatically. You will be prompted to share your identity and photo with a contact when you are about to initiate communication with them.
Because my contact photo privacy is set to “Always Ask” and I have not yet given permission to share my name and photo with this contact, the person to whom I’m sending a text cannot view my current name and photo since I last changed them. This contact will only be able to view my contact photo and poster if I select Share at the top of the screen.
If you disable Name & Photo Sharing on iOS 17 for your contact card, none of your contacts will be able to view your updated name and photo on their device. They will continue to see the last photo and name they had access to before you disabled the feature or altered the photo’s privacy settings.
This concludes the customization of the privacy settings for your Contact Photo and Poster on iOS 17.
