The contacts tool on the iPhone is so helpful that it can be used as a crutch at times. At this point, can you even remember the phone number of your closest family member? If you don’t, you could get into a lot of trouble if your contacts get lost or removed. Luckily, you can get back your old contacts on your iPhone and other devices in a number of ways. We will walk you through each method so that you can quickly get back to normal.
On the best iPhones, iCloud makes it easy to get back in touch with your friends. Here’s how to use iOS to get back contacts on an iPhone from iCloud.
Recover contacts using iCloud on your iPhone.
Take your time with losing or deleting a friend by accident. iCloud is already set up to sync contacts. To sync with your iPhone again, go to Settings and turn them off and on again.
Step 1: Simply navigate to [your name] > Settings > iCloud.
Step 2: Select Keep on My iPhone and turn off Contacts.
Step 3: Open Contacts and choose Merge. After a short time, the friends you deleted should show up back on your iPhone.
Recover contacts using iCloud.com.
This is another reliable way to get back lost contacts, as well as other things like Calendar events and Reminders. It comes straight from Apple. And some time. Additionally, your Apple ID and password are required.
Step 1: Go to iCloud.com and sign in with your Apple ID and password.
Step 2: After logging in, scroll down and click on the Data Recovery box.
Step 3: Scroll down and click on Restore Contacts.
Step 4: You’ll see a list of all the records you’ve made before. Using the dates, find an archive that has your whole list of friends and click “Restore.”
Step 5: Press Restore to make sure you want to restore and begin the process. After that, an email will be sent to the address associated with your Apple ID.
More techniques for restoring iPhone contacts
You can also try these other things:
- If none of those work, you can also try to recover your phone from an iTunes backup. This will also bring back your contact information.
- Keep your old iPhone. If you have yet to change many friends since then, you can move them over or add new ones that are important to you.
- Try getting in touch with them again through Facebook or a familiar friend. It’s more embarrassing than you might think to forget a friend or contact’s information.
What about new contacts?
You can update and replace all of your iPhone contacts with most of the above methods, not just the ones that are lost. You will lose any new friends you added since the last backup if that’s the case. You will be able to get your new contacts back later because your iPhone will back them up automatically before it finishes this reset.
Follow the first three steps above to get back your new contacts. When you do that, make sure you choose the backup that was made the day you fixed your phone. Of course, it’s okay if you restore it with the wrong archive by chance. You can use the same steps to get your contacts back if you choose the wrong folder by accident.
Hi, I’m Amelia John — a Canadian writer with a background in English and Professional Writing. For the past four years, I’ve helped brands craft content that connects, from blog posts to web copy.
