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How to make a conference call on your iPhone with up to 5 participants

woman at home talking on the phone with dog in lap
It's easy to quickly make conference calls on an iPhone. The Good Brigade/Getty Images
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You might not realize it, but your iPhone is capable of making conference calls with up to five participants at once, including you.

You can even break off into private calls with individual participants, or end the call for only certain participants.

Here's everything you need to know about conference calling on iPhone. 

How to start a conference call on your iPhone 

1. Open the Phone app and place a call to your first participant in the usual way.

2. After the call connects, tell your participant that they'll be briefly placed on hold while you dial in the next person. 

3. Tap add call underneath the plus sign "+" icon. 

iPhone call in progress screen, tap "add call" on this page
Tap "add call" to dial another participant.  Dave Johnson/Insider

4. Call the next person any way you like. You can select someone from your list of contacts or tap any of the icons at the bottom of the screen — Favorites, Recent, Contacts, or Keypad to place the call. 

Add Call page contacts list
Choose a contact from your contacts, favorites, recents, or type in a number using the keypad.  Grace Eliza Goodwin/Insider

5. After this next participant answers, tap merge calls to combine them into a single conversation. 

Two calls in progress on an iPhone, tap "merge calls" to combine them
Tap "merge calls."  Dave Johnson/Insider

6. If you want to add more people to the call, you can repeat the process: tap add call, place the call, and merge the call. You can add up to five participants, depending on your carrier's limitations. 

You can also add someone who calls you to a conference call in progress. When the call comes in, tap Hold & Accept, and then tap merge calls.

iPhone incoming call options, tap "hold and accept"
To accept the call, tap "Hold & Accept."  Dave Johnson/Insider

How to manage your conference call on iPhone

Once your conference call is in progress, you can go "private" with a specific participant, as well as hang up on callers one at a time. 

To do that, tap the blue "i" icon at the top-right of the screen. You'll see a list of all the participants on the call with buttons to end the call or speak to them privately. 

iPhone conference call list of participants with button to end call or start private call
in the list of call participants, tap "End" to remove that person from the call or "Private" to start a private call.  Dave Johnson/Insider

The person who started the conference call is the only one who can see the list of all callers. If you didn't start the call but added a participant, then you can see a list of only the people you've added.

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Dave Johnson is a technology journalist who writes about consumer tech and how the industry is transforming the speculative world of science fiction into modern-day real life. Dave grew up in New Jersey before entering the Air Force to operate satellites, teach space operations, and do space launch planning. He then spent eight years as a content lead on the Windows team at Microsoft. As a photographer, Dave has photographed wolves in their natural environment; he's also a scuba instructor and co-host of several podcasts. Dave is the author of more than two dozen books and has contributed to many sites and publications including CNET, Forbes, PC World, How To Geek, and Insider.