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How to recover deleted contacts on iPhone with or without iCloud
Missing or accidentally deleting iPhone contact is a scary experience. This article is here to tell how to retrieve contacts from iPhone with or without iCloud.
Whether you have iPhone backup or not, there's still chance of getting lost contacts retrieved to iPhone Contacts app.
In daily use of iPhone, your contacts may disappear or be lost due to accidental deletion, system update, memory clearing or other reasons, which will bring inconvenience to your work and life. Therefore, retrieving deleted contacts on iPhone is an important skill to keep your daily communication smooth and information safe!
This post will give you a comprehensive overview of how to restore deleted contacts on iPhone, whether you have created a backup in advance or not. It is worth mentioning that with iPhone Data Recovery, you can not only recover deleted contacts on your iPhone without backup, but you can also use it to extract only contact items from iTunes backup.
There is no built-in function specifically for viewing deleted contacts on the iPhone's Contacts app, which is different from the Photos app and Messages app. Although you cannot find and view deleted contacts directly on the iPhone, you can find archives containing deleted contacts on iCloud to facilitate you to restore deleted phone numbers to the iPhone.
In short, deleted contacts are not gone forever, you can retrieve recently deleted contacts on iPhone through iCloud, Gmail, backup and third-party software.
How to recover deleted contacts on iPhone from iCloud
The most straightforward and easy way to restore your deleted iPhone contacts without erasing other data is to use iCloud. Here are two ways to recover deleted contacts from iCloud.
Restore contacts on iPhone through iCloud.com
With iCloud Contacts enabled, if you accidentally delete your contacts or your iPhone contacts are missing, you can visit iCloud.com to retrieve your deleted contacts, because iCloud will automatically back up and archive user contact information regularly.
However, the archived information will replace all existing contact lists on your iPhone and will be synced to devices using the same Apple ID.
1. After accessing icloud.com in a browser, sign in and verify with your Apple account.
2. Click the "profile picture" icon in the upper right corner and select "Data Recovery."
3. Locate the "Restore Contacts" tab and you will see a list of earlier archives created.
4. Select the archive version containing your lost contacts by date and click "Restore."
5. Click "Restore" again to confirm. When you receive a notification in iCloud, the restore is complete.
Note:
Before the restore process starts, iCloud will automatically back up your current contacts as the latest archive.
Do not make any changes during the restore process.
If you want to undo the restore, repeat the above steps and select the latest archive created.
Recover iPhone deleted contacts by merging
It's possible that your deleted contacts have been backed up by iCloud, but there's no new backup file to replace it, so you can integrate the restored contacts with the existing contacts on your iPhone by re-sync the contact lists from iCloud.
1. Navigate to Settings > [your name] > iCloud.
2. Find Contacts in the APPS USING ICLOUD list and move the slider to OFF.
3. Choose "Keep on My iPhone" in the pop-up box.
4. Tap the toggle next to Contacts to turn it on.
5. Choose "Merge" to add the missing contacts to your address book.
Then open the Contacts app and you can see the recovered deleted contacts, but this method has a certain probability because all your changes to contacts including additions and deletions are synced when iCloud Contacts is enabled. If you can't retrieve deleted photos on iPhone through iCloud, you can move to the next method.
How to restore iPhone contacts without backup
If your iCloud doesn't have enough space to save your lost contacts or you don't have available iCloud/iTunes backup, don't worry, with the help of safe and reliable iPhone Data Recovery, you can still recover deleted contacts on iPhone without losing data.
This software will thoroughly scan the internal storage of your iPhone to make sure that deleted contacts can be found effectively. And you can preview the scanned results and choose the phone numbers and information you want to restore.
Besides, you can use it to extract contacts from iTunes backup separately for recovery. It's a great helper to recover deleted photos, messages, notes, calendar, reminder, bookmarks, call logs to iOS devices. Here's how to recover your deleted contacts on iPhone without iCloud:
1. Launch the software on your computer and connect your iPhone to the computer with a USB cable.
2. Choose "Recover from iOS Device" mode and hit the "Start Scan" button.
3. When the scan is done, click "Contacts" category on the left column to preview the recoverable iPhone contacts, including contact name, phone number, company and email.
4. Select the deleted contacts you want to retrieve to iPhone and then click the "Recover to Device" button to recover your phone numbers and other contact info.
A video tutorial for recovering deleted contacts on iPhone without a backup:
When your contacts are set to sync with Gmail, they are actually stored in Google's cloud, not just locally on the iPhone, so you can get back your deleted contacts from Gmail. The same goes for other email accounts like Yahoo, Exchange or Outlook, which will allow you to restore contacts to your iPhone without a computer.
1. Open Settings app on the iPhone.
2. Tap Mail > Accounts and choose "Gmail."
3. Switch on the slider next to Contacts to begin syncing Gmail contacts with your iPhone.
4. Go back to Contacts app and you should see the lost contacts are restored.
Retrieve deleted contacts on iPhone via Finder
For Mac users running macOS Catalina or higher, they have the option to use Finder to restore their deleted iPhone contacts from a backup. However, through Finder, you can only choose to restore a complete backup file, which will overwrite all the existing contents and result in the loss of new data on iPhone. If your lost contacts are important to you, you can take it as your last solution.
1. Plug your iPhone to Mac and run Finder on the desktop.
2. Click [your iPhone] under Locations on the left side bar.
3. Under General tab, choose "Restore Backup."
4. Select a backup and click "Restore."
Tip: If you have a suitable iTunes backup on computer, try using AppGeeker iPhone Data Recovery's Recover from iTunes Backup File mode. It will let you access the iTunes backup and pick only the desired contact items for recovery without affecting other data.
Conclusion
Reading this post, you will know how to retrieve deleted contacts on an iPhone and you can pick the most suitable method according to your situation:
Gmail – for users who associate contacts with Gmail accounts
Finder – for Mac users but will replace data
In addition, remember to use iCloud or other ways to habitually backup your iPhone, so that you can find the missing contacts and restore them next time!
