How to Sync Facebook Contact Photos in iOS 8

As you might have noticed, you astute iphone-r’s you, your new favorites bar contains a bunch of gray circles above each of your recent contact’s names. These little bubbles are meant to contain photos, so that each of your contacts has a picture. Fun, right? So, how do you manage to get photos assigned to each of your contacts? There are a few ways to go about this, but easily the fastest option is to sync your contacts with your Facebook account, importing your friends’ profile pictures into your phone en mass, and filling those lonely little gray bubbles with the smiling faces of your friends and family. It takes all of five seconds- a few taps and swipes and you’re done. Check out the steps below to see how.

1. Open Settings.

2. Tap “Facebook.”

3. Toggle the “Contacts” button to the green “on” position.

This will sync your Facebook account with your phone, and your new contact photos should appear immediately. Like I said, it’s fast and convenient. However, I’m going to be honest and admit that I’m a bit under-whelmed by the options given by iOS 8 to add photos to your contacts. Sure, you can assign photos individually – which gives you a lot of freedom to choose the picture for each person – but doing this for all of your contacts will take forever. Alternatively, you can go the road-runner route, syncing with Facebook in just a few seconds. But this also adds every single one of your Facebook friends to your contacts. I find this unappealing as well. I haven’t spoken to Max Mcullough since that dance in 7th grade, I definitely do not need him in my address book. As of right now, I am unaware of any better options. Have you readers found a more efficient method of assigning photos to your contacts? Weigh in in the comments below.

For more iOS tips and tricks head to our iOS How To’s section.