The new iPhone 15
mpseven's profile

Contributor

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1 Message

Tuesday, May 10th, 2011 2:48 AM

Lost contacts on iphone

How do I retrieve?  They just disappeared.

Professor

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2.4K Messages

13 years ago

Contacts should be synced to a supported application on your computer or to a cloud service like an Exchange server, Gmail contacts, or MobileMe.

 

If they are, then simply resync them.

 

If they are not, you can try restoring from a backup as backups are supposed to include contacts.  No guarantees though.

Teacher

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28 Messages

13 years ago

 to re-sync again your iphone to itunes

Teacher

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19 Messages

11 years ago

If u store your contact with itunes, u can just sync it back.

Tutor

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4 Messages

11 years ago

Hi mpseven,

I encountered a similiar problem this month, my genius brother took my iPhone 4S(I don’t know when) he deleted all my contacts & text messages... Finally I found this tool on Cnet which saved my phone and retrieved all my data, Hope it can help you.
Actually the deleted files are still in the database of your iPhone, so you can use professional phone data recovery tool to bring them back.

Contributor

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1 Message

11 years ago

I am having the same issue with my iPhone 4, lost contacts on iPhone has happened to me twice now. The first time I went onto the website and somehow all my contacts were in the trash bin portion of the my backup assistant. This time my contacts are where they should be on the my backup assistant but my iphone shows no contacts.

 

It was lucky that I restore contacts on iPhone via iCloud:

settings>iCloud>check to see if your signed in or have contacts on, if you do then turn off contacts, keep on phone, turn back on, merge and your contacts should show up again.

Contributor

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1 Message

11 years ago

Just lost all my contacts, too, iPhone 4, software 5.1. I can see the phone numbers (no names) of recent calls, but there is nothing at all under the "Contacts" section.
Hope my experience can help you {commercial link removed}.
I do have a recent backup to iTunes on my PC that I hope has my contacts information included, but I'm a little scared to try the restore because it seems like there is just one chance to get this right. iTunes says all media and other data will be erased if I restore, so I'm also worried that I will lose all my text messages and voicemails. I'm not sure it's worth it to restore my contacts if I lose all my text messages - do I have to choose?

I'm also afraid to do another backup now, because it seems that will backup what's currently on my phone only - not sure the older backup would save? I can't tell about this, either! None of this seems intuitive.

Any thoughts appreciated - may go to Apple Store but doesn't really look like they want to help with this kind of problem.

Oh, and I had the same symptoms of phone crashing and acting up right before I lost my contacts.

Read more: {Inappropriate content removed}

Guru

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402 Messages

11 years ago

Not sure this will help you (or anyone else) but I have "lost" my contacts occasionally in the past, mainly following software updates, but didn't happen with iOS 7. All I did was hit the little refresh arrow (top left) in the contacts app and bingo they re-appeared. I do have them backed up in iCloud and iTunes as a safety net. Smiley Happy

Master

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4.2K Messages

11 years ago

It is important to everyone to back up all data that is important to you anything can go wrong and if you use iTunes and go through the checklists of what you want on your phone it can easilly be backed up and restored if you remember to sync your phone each time you add something you do not want to lose.

This should be done on any computing device always back them up.

Contributor

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1 Message

10 years ago

If they were stored on the phone and the phone was restored, the contacts are lost.
However, you may have a backup in iTunes. Plug the iPhone into iTunes. You should see it on the left. Right-click it on the list on the left and Restore iPhone Contacts from backup (not the button on the right!). See if you have any backups prior to you noticing the names missing.

If this does not work and since you stated you do not have a backup, then you will need to manually re-enter all contacts.

Go on the iphone to settings>mail, contacts, calendar> scroll down and select "import sim contacts".

Try these ways to see if they work.

Contributor

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1 Message

10 years ago

I have deleted all my contacts while i was by table, who can help me to recover them.

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