FaceTime is the easiest way to see family on a phone or tablet screen instead of just hearing their voice. It already comes installed on every iPhone and iPad, so there is nothing to buy and nothing new to download.

This guide walks through turning FaceTime on, making your first call, setting up a Group FaceTime call with several people at once, and fixing the two most common problems: a black screen and no sound.

With the holidays bringing families together, or keeping them apart and wishing they weren’t, now is a good time to get comfortable with it. Once it is set up, a call takes about as much effort as answering the phone.

How Do You Set Up and Use FaceTime?

Turn FaceTime on in Settings, then open the app, tap New Call, and enter a contact to start a video or audio call. The rest of this guide breaks that down into simple steps, plus what to do with a group of people, and what to do when something goes wrong.

Turning FaceTime On

  1. Open the Settings app (the gray icon with gears).
  2. Scroll down and tap FaceTime.
  3. Turn on the switch at the top so it turns green.
  4. Make sure the correct Apple ID is signed in underneath it. This is usually already done, but it is worth checking once.

Plain talk: Apple ID

An Apple ID is the account (an email address and password) that connects apps like FaceTime, iMessage, and the App Store to one person. It is set up once when the device is new.

That is the entire setup. There is no separate account to create and no profile to fill out.

Making Your First FaceTime Call

  1. Find the green FaceTime icon on the home screen and open it.
  2. Tap the plus button or New Call.
  3. Type the name, phone number, or email address of the person to call. If they are already saved as a contact, their name will appear as you type. Tap it.
  4. Tap the blue video camera icon for a video call, or the phone icon for an audio-only call.
  5. Wait a moment while it connects. The other person needs to tap Accept on their end.

Try this

Before the first real call, FaceTime a family member who already uses it to test the picture and sound. It is much less stressful to fix a setting on a practice call than during a real one.

The person on the other end also needs an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac with FaceTime turned on for a normal call. If they use an Android phone or a Windows computer, there is still a way to include them, covered below.

Calling Someone Without an iPhone

FaceTime Links let a person join a call from almost any device, even one without FaceTime.

  1. Open FaceTime and tap Create Link.
  2. Give the link a name, such as “Sunday Family Call.”
  3. Choose how to send it (Messages, Mail, or another app) and send it to the person.
  4. They tap the link and join through a web browser, no Apple device required.

This is useful for a family with a mix of iPhones, Android phones, and computers, since everyone can still land on the same call.

Making a Group FaceTime Call

A Group FaceTime call can include up to 32 people at once, according to Apple’s own Group FaceTime support page, which makes it large enough for most extended families.

  1. Start a normal FaceTime call with one person, following the steps above.
  2. Once connected, tap the screen to bring up the controls, then tap Add Person.
  3. Type in the next name and tap Add. Repeat for everyone joining.
  4. Each new person’s tile appears on screen as they join. Whoever is currently talking is shown larger, which makes a busy call with several people easier to follow.
Call type Who can join Good for
One-on-one FaceTime Anyone with an Apple device signed into FaceTime A quick catch-up with one person
Group FaceTime Up to 32 people with Apple devices A holiday call with the whole family
FaceTime Link Anyone with a web browser, Apple device or not Including Android or Windows relatives

Say this

“Can you FaceTime me for a few minutes tonight, just so we can test it before the holiday call?” A short practice run the week before a big group call catches most problems early, while there is still time to fix them calmly.

Fixing a Black Screen on FaceTime

A black screen during a call almost always comes down to the camera being blocked or turned off, not a broken phone.

  1. Check that a finger, phone case, or screen protector is not covering the camera lens, which usually sits at the top of the screen.
  2. Open Settings, scroll to FaceTime, and confirm the toggle is still turned on.
  3. Open Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Camera, and check that FaceTime has permission to use the camera.
  4. Close FaceTime completely and reopen it. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen and pause, find the FaceTime preview, and swipe it away, then open the app again.
  5. If the screen is still black, restart the device by holding the side button and a volume button until the power slider appears.

Safety tip

If a video call ever shows a black screen right after tapping a link sent by text message from a number that is not saved as a contact, stop and do not enter any information. Close the message and call the person back using a number already saved in Contacts instead. Real FaceTime calls never need a password or gift card typed in to make the picture appear.

Fixing No Sound on FaceTime

No sound during a call usually means the phone is muted somewhere, not that the microphone or speaker is broken.

  1. Check the small switch on the left side of the iPhone. If it shows orange, the phone is on silent, which can affect call sound on some devices.
  2. Press the volume up button on the side of the phone a few times during the call.
  3. Look at the FaceTime screen itself for a microphone icon with a line through it, and tap it if the call was accidentally muted.
  4. Check that a case is not covering the small microphone holes near the charging port or camera.
  5. If the other person cannot hear anything either, close and reopen the FaceTime app, the same way described for a black screen.

Try this

If sound problems keep happening on the same call, try switching to a wired or Bluetooth headset. It rules out the built-in speaker and microphone as the cause in one step.

A Few Small Habits That Help

Getting comfortable with FaceTime is mostly about repetition. A few habits make it smoother for older adults and the family calling them:

  • Keep the FaceTime icon on the first home screen page, not tucked away in a folder.
  • Save family members as contacts with a clear name and photo, so a call is easy to recognize before answering.
  • Agree on a rough weekly time for calls, so nobody is caught off guard by an unfamiliar ring.
  • Turn up the ringtone volume in Settings so an incoming call is easy to notice.

None of this requires becoming a tech expert. It just takes one or two calls to get past the first bit of awkwardness, and after that, FaceTime tends to become the easiest way a family stays in touch, especially when everyone cannot be in the same room for the holidays.

If reading the screen is part of the struggle rather than the calling itself, a few display settings can make a real difference. Our guide on making text bigger on iPhone covers the settings worth changing first.

For families setting this up for a parent who lives elsewhere, our guide to helping a parent with their iPhone remotely walks through doing most of this over the phone, without needing to be in the same room.

And for more on choosing between FaceTime, Zoom, and WhatsApp for calling grandkids specifically, see our guide to video calling grandkids.

Where to go from here

FaceTime is one small piece of getting comfortable with an iPhone. For a full walkthrough of the settings worth changing, the apps worth knowing, and the everyday habits that make a phone easier to use, our book Your iPhone covers it step by step, in the same plain language as this guide.