How to keep track of when you last talked to someone

You’d think your phone already knows. In a way it does: the Phone app keeps a list of recent calls, and your chat apps put the latest conversation at the top. But that history is spread across the Phone app, WhatsApp and Messages, and it leaves out the coffee you had in person. The call list isn’t a full record either: Apple’s own guide to call history says your carrier may have more information on older calls.

What helps is one place that says, for each person, the last day you really talked. Here are three ways to keep one, starting with the simplest.

Why your phone can’t do it for you

iPhone doesn’t let apps read your WhatsApp chats or your text messages. That’s good for your privacy, and it also means no app can quietly keep this list for you. So whichever method you choose, you’re the one who notes down that you talked. The trick is to make that take a few seconds, so you keep doing it after the first week.

Method 1: a line on their contact card

Open the Contacts app, tap the person, tap Edit and scroll down to the Notes field. Put the date and a few words at the top, like “2 Nov, call, she’s moving in March”. Next time you talk, add a new line above the old one, so the latest is always first.

This costs nothing and it’s already on your phone. It works well for a handful of people. Where it falls short is the overview: to find who you haven’t talked to in a while, you have to open every card one by one. It also never reminds you of anything.

Method 2: a simple spreadsheet you can copy

If you’d like to see everyone at once, a spreadsheet is hard to beat. Use whichever app you already have: the layout works in any of them, and the formulas further down work in Google Sheets and Excel. Make one row per person, with these six columns. The people in the table are only examples.

Type the date in column B as a real date, not as words, or the sums won’t work. In row 2, put =TODAY()-B2 in column D and =IF(D2>C2,"Yes","") in column E, then copy both down the list. In both apps TODAY always gives today’s date, so the count in column D goes up on its own. If Excel shows a date in column D instead of a number, change that column’s format to Number.

Now sort by column D, biggest first, to put the longest gaps at the top, or filter column E to see only the people marked Yes. When you talk to someone, change their date in column B, and add a word or two in column F while you still remember what they said.

The weak spot is that a spreadsheet only helps when you open it. Give it a fixed moment, like Sunday morning with a coffee. It’s also fiddly to edit on a phone, which is the thing in your hand right after most calls.

Method 3: an app that counts from your last talk

A repeating event in your calendar won’t do this job, because it rings on its date whether or not you already talked. We look at what Apple Reminders can and can’t do in a separate guide to getting a reminder a few weeks after your last talk.

What you want is a clock for each person that starts again every time you talk. Several keep-in-touch apps work like that. On iPhone they can’t see your chats either, so you still tell them, but it’s usually a tap rather than typing a date. Some of them are personal CRMs, made with work contacts in mind, and if you only care about friends and family that can be more than you need. We compare more than 60 of them in our list of apps to keep in touch with friends.

What to write down, and what to skip

The date matters most. After that, a few words about what’s going on in their life: the new job, the trip, the thing they were worried about. That’s what you’ll want to ask about next time, and it’s the part people tend to lose. Our guide on how to remember what your friends tell you goes into more detail.

You don’t need the whole conversation, and you don’t need to note who wrote first. Keeping score turns it into a chore, and it won’t help you think of what to say. If you’re not sure how often you’d like to talk to each person, our guide to how often to talk to your friends can help you pick a number for column C.

Ciao! is our app, made for this. You add the people you care about and choose how often for each one. When you’ve talked, you swipe their card right and their clock starts again. Your list of people shows how long it’s been with each one, in words like “A few weeks ago”, and you can sort it so the people you talked to least recently come first. Each person’s page keeps the days you talked, next to your notes. When it’s been a while with someone, you get a short note that evening. Ciao! can’t read your chats, so you tell it yourself, and it never sends a message for you. There’s no account: your list stays on your phone and in your own iCloud, and the other person never knows they’re in it.

Questions

Can my iPhone show when I last talked to someone?

Partly. The Phone app lists your recent calls, and Messages and WhatsApp show the latest chat first. None of them shows, in one place, the last time you talked to each person in any way, including face to face. For a real record you need to write it down yourself.

Is there an app that tracks when you last talked to a friend?

Yes, several keep-in-touch apps do, and Ciao! for iPhone is one of them. On iPhone none of these apps can read your messages, so you log a talk yourself, usually with one tap. Our list of keep-in-touch apps compares more than 60.

How do I make a spreadsheet show who I haven’t talked to in a while?

Put the last day you talked in column B and how often you’d like to talk, in days, in column C. In column D, =TODAY()-B2 shows how many days it’s been. Sort by that column, biggest first, and the longest gaps come to the top.

Will the other person know I’m keeping track?

No. A note on a contact card, a spreadsheet you don’t share and Ciao! all stay with you. Ciao! has no account, and the other person is never in the app.