Skip to main content

How to make Siri smarter with family relationships

Did you know you can tell Siri about your relationships with the contacts stored on your iPhone and other Apple devices? Read on for how to make Siri smarter by assigning family (and many other) relationships, including made-up ones.

Sometimes using Siri for commands that involve contacts can be a hassle. Siri might not catch the last name or you might have multiple contacts with the same first name, slowing down the process.

Luckily you can tell Siri about any number of relationships for a better experience with the voice assistant on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and more. The functionality goes way beyond traditional relationships too, so you can create a Siri connection with a contact based on nicknames or any other goofy or weird association you’d like to make.

How to make Siri smarter with family relationships

  1. Tell Siri about your relationship, for example ” ___________ is my dad”
  2. Confirm to Siri the relationship with the contact
  3. Now you can use words like “dad” and “father” for Siri commands like sending messages, making calls, and more.
  4. Get creative, you can assign any word as a relationship to a contact like: “Tommy is my turtle,” “Tina is my wildflower,” “Mitch is my brobrocop.”

Here’s how the process looks:

If you’d like to undo a relationship, just say the same command you used to create it but replace “is my ________” with “is not my ___________.” Confirm to Siri your request to undo the relationship.

For more help getting the most out of your Apple devices, check out our How-to guide as well as the following articles:

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

OnlyBrush Smart Dental Travel Kit
You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel