If you ever find yourself in trouble — medically or otherwise — Apple has built a feature into both the iPhone and Apple Watch to get you help as quickly as possible. It's called SOS (named after the morse code distress signal), and when triggered, it will call your area's emergency services department and automatically notify your emergency contacts. (Obviously, you'll only want to use this feature in a true emergency — most EMS departments don't take prank calls lightly.)

Your iPhone or Apple Watch can automatically find the number for your local emergency services department by triangulating your current location, but it can't automatically pick your emergency contacts: If you want to alert any members of your family or friends in an emergency, you'll have to designate them yourself. Here's how to do it!

How to add emergency contacts to your iPhone or Apple Watch

If you have added emergency contacts to your Health app, they will automatically be contacted when you trigger Emergency SOS on your iPhone. They will also continue to be notified of your current location every time you move.

  1. Launch the Health app on your iPhone.
  2. Tap the Medical ID tab.
  3. Tap Edit in the upper right corner.

  4. Tap Edit Medical ID.

    Open Health app, tap Edit, tap Edit Medical ID

  5. Under Emergency Contacts tap Add emergency contact.
  6. Select a contact from your list.

  7. Select a Relationship.

    Tap Add emergency contact, pick a contact, pick a releationship

Repeat the process until all of your emergency contacts have been added.

Questions?

Let us know below.

Updated January 2018: Updated for iOS 11 and watchOS 4.

Apple Watch

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