I lost all contacts. How to Recover Lost Contacts on iPhone

If you use technology from Apple, then you have the opportunity to recover lost numbers. There are several ways to get back deleted contacts; which one you choose depends on whether you have synchronized your device with Apple servers or not.

When to restore contacts on iPhone

The need to restore contacts arises if they were lost for some reason. For example, you accidentally deleted the numbers, or the SIM card on which the contacts were stored was damaged. If you decide that you need to return deleted contacts, then first of all, disconnect your phone and the devices synchronized with it from the Internet so that information about your contact book is not updated on the ICloud and iTunes servers.

How to get back lost or deleted phone numbers

If your device is synchronized through an account with ICloud or iTunes servers, then use one of the following instructions.

Via iTunes

Every certain period of time, a backup copy of the data stored on your phone, including contacts, is sent to the iTunes server. If you have not disabled this function, you can return one of the deleted numbers or all at once at any time. But remember that replaying the restore process will roll back all changes made to the device until the last backup was created.

We connect the phone to the computer via a USB cable and open iTunes.
In the section with information about your device, go to the “Overview” subsection.
In the “Backups” block, click on the “Restore from copy” button.
If you have activated the “Find iPhone” function on your phone, be sure to disable it before starting the operation. Otherwise, the system will not allow the recovery to begin, and you will see a corresponding notification.
In the window that appears, click on the device you want to restore and click the “Restore” button.

Via iCloud

Using a computer, go to the official ICloud website http://icloud.com/ and log in using the account with which the iPhone with lost contacts is synchronized.
In the list of applications that opens, click on the “Contacts” icon.
In the left list, select a contact and click on the gear icon.
In the menu that opens, select the “Export to VCard” section.
After this, the file that needs to be transferred to your phone will be automatically downloaded to your computer. Thanks to him, you can restore contact.

Through re-syncing with ICloud servers

If you managed to disconnect your Internet connection before the contact list information was updated, then this method will help you:

Open the Settings application on your phone.
Go to the iCloud section.
Disable contact synchronization by turning the slider to gray.
Select the “Leave on iPhone” option.
We connect the device to the mobile Internet or Wi-Fi.
Through the ICloud settings, enable contact synchronization by moving the slider to green.
You will be asked to combine the contacts stored on the iCloud server and those located on your phone. Confirm the merger.
The process may take several minutes, after which the lost contacts will return to their place.

Via Windows, Mac OS or Microsoft Outlook email

If the Contacts application is installed on your computer and synchronized with your phone, then you can export any of the saved contacts in the desired format for your IPhone:

On your computer, launch a file manager or simple explorer.
Navigate to the folder where your contacts are stored. It usually looks like this: Drive name/Users/Account name/Contacts. Select the contact to be restored.
Click on the “Export” button.
Save the file in the "Folder with files.vcf" format.
Specify the folder where the files will be saved.
One of the methods (by email or USB cable) transfer the received file to your phone.
Run the file and click on the “New Contact” button, then fill in the required fields and save the number.

Exporting and transferring a file to Windows and Mac OS is no different. If you use iTunes synchronization through Microsoft Outlook, then all steps follow the same order, but the “Export” button can be found if you expand the “File” menu. And the object itself must be saved in the VCard extension.

Via iBackupBot

This recovery method also occurs using a data backup stored on iTunes servers and a third-party application IBackupBot:

Download the application from the official website of the developer (http://www.icopybot.com/itunes-backup-manager.htm) and install it.
After launching the application, scanning files will automatically begin, which will allow you to find backup copies for recovery. After the process is completed, you will see detailed information about the device.
The left column Bakups contains a list of available backups. Let's choose one of them.
Expand the “File” menu.
Select the Duplicate section and specify the path to the folder in which the copy will be saved. This is done so that if the main backup copy is damaged, you will have a spare one.
Now in the Whats in Backup block, which is located under the device information, click the Contacts button.
A list of all available contacts will open; select the one you want to restore.
Expand the Export menu by clicking on the corresponding icon.
Click on the Export as vCard file button.
Skip the registration section. To perform this operation, you only need the free version of the program.
Select the folder in which the contact file will be saved.
Transfer the file to your phone via email or USB cable.
Open it, click the “New Contact” button and add the number to the contact book.

Via iPhone Backup Extractor

iPhone Backup Extractor is a paid analogue of the IBackupBot application. You can download it from the official website (

Thanks to it, you can do everything you can with its free replacement, IBackupBot. So that you can evaluate it, a trial version of the application is available on the site, through which you can restore no more than 4 contacts, after which you will have to pay.

Let's launch the application. Information about the last saved backup copy will automatically appear in front of you.
By expanding the Select backup block, you can select one of the other available backups.
Opposite the folder icon, click on the Extract button (the numbers are the number of contacts). In this case, all contacts will be saved in several files in .csv and .vcf formats, and each number will be saved separately in .vcf format. If you want to create only one file, then follow these steps.
Expand the Extract menu.
Click on one of the first three items: Contacts as VCards, VCard, CSV.
Transfer the files to your phone, open them and add the numbers to your contacts list.

How to prevent contacts from disappearing on your phone

To avoid the situation where accidentally deleted contacts cannot be returned, follow a few simple rules:

After deleting a contact, immediately turn off your phone’s Internet access so that it does not have time to synchronize the data changes with the backup copy stored.
Manually update your backup regularly to ensure it only contains the latest data.
Create more backups so that each one stores device information for a certain period of time. For example, one copy will contain data that was on the phone a year ago, and the other will contain information from a month ago.
Set up synchronization of contacts and other data with ICloud servers.

If your device is synced with iTunes or iCloud, then you have the opportunity to recover lost contacts in several ways. In any case, you will need to have a backup copy. Otherwise, if your iPhone has not been synchronized with any of the Apple servers, you will not be able to restore the number.

Hi guys! This topic will be of interest to many, because everyone would like to know how to recover deleted contacts on their phone. Sometimes gadget owners encounter a similar problem and in most cases think that everything is lost and it is simply impossible to fight for restoration. However, this is not so, in this issue we will analyze everything in detail.

Is it possible to recover deleted contacts?

Data recovery is an important topic in today's world, and phone contacts are no exception. Surely, someone will be pleased with the news: you can restore contacts not only from a SIM card, but also from the phone itself.

Methods for restoring numbers:

1. Restore backup

Many people who have lost their phone have taken this fact into account, so they regularly back up their contacts. You can simply write down your most important numbers in a notebook with a ballpoint pen, for example :). Well, in general, numbers can be successfully saved on a virtual cloud or on a computer. If you didn’t make a copy, then think, maybe your old phone still has the necessary numbers and it’s possible to rewrite them?

2. Google Help

There are many phone users who save all their numbers in their Google account. If you always act this way, then there should be no problems with restoring contacts.

3. Special restoration programs

There are special programs that can restore your numbers, as a rule, they are designed for PCs, but I can give you an example of a program for phones. One of the well-known ones is Data Doctor Recovery - SIM Card 3.0.1.5, specializing in data recovery from SIM cards. I tried to search for this application in Google Play, but I couldn’t find it there, only in a search engine directly, downloading it from websites.

4. Contact specialists

Specialists, if they are really professionals, can repair the phone and restore data, it can be expensive. Contact us in extreme cases, having tried everything, or if there is an important need.

5. Call details from your network operator

We call the operator and request an SMS with call details for the last month or at least a week. You will only see numbers, but sometimes this is enough for happiness, because you can just call everyone and write down the contacts again.

Restoring contacts on Android!

We asked ourselves the question: “How to restore contacts on Android?” We are trying to synchronize the phone with a Google account. Does not help! Then the Dr.Fone program comes into play, it’s free, enter the name in the search engine and download. Allows you to recover data, not only contacts, but also audio, video, messages, etc. The installation is performed on a computer, which we connect to the phone via USB. After synchronization, the phone and the program begin scanning for lost data. You will see the files deleted from your mobile phone. Select the necessary contacts and copy them back to your phone by clicking Recover.

IMPORTANT!!! To firmly secure your phone from losing contacts, I bring to your attention the Dumpster application. The so-called recycle bin, like a PC, is only for the phone. Here you can easily track and recover damaged files.

Recover contacts on iPhone? Easily!

How to restore contacts on iPhone? Help for gardeners:

The first method is an iTunes backup;
The second method is a special information cloud.

The first method is not particularly different from Dr.Fone, but the second one, the one with the “cloud” (“cloud” is also sometimes called)
has a different device and its own nuances. Let's imagine the situation: you accidentally delete contacts from your phone. Your actions: immediately turn off the Internet, or turn off the iCloud function. Otherwise, the phone is synchronized with the virtual cloud and nothing can be restored.

How to recover contacts from icloud?

Go to the official cloud website http://icloud.com/ and enter your login password. The data is the one that is configured on your iPhone in iCloud. Login, open contacts, select the required numbers, then Export vCard. The marked data is exported to a file moved to the "Downloads" of your PC. Now we just synchronize our iPhone and PC. The numbers have been restored!

Recover contacts on windows phone

Someone claims that it is impossible to recover deleted numbers on the Windows platform. However, you can if you have previously created a Microsoft account.

You can create an account in your phone settings.

How to restore contacts on a SIM card?

It was already mentioned earlier about the Data Doctor Recovery SIM Card program. The application will restore deleted contacts from a SIM card; you will also need a special Card Reader. It connects to a PC and all the necessary information is displayed on the monitor.

Don’t forget about the Viber application, from there you can restore more than one contact.

Programs for restoring contacts:

Data recover Tenorshare
Restores contacts from SIM card and phone. Helps you find lost photos, videos, SMS and much more. Works on Android. The process is carried out by scanning the phone system and restoring it.

Data recovery MyJad

MyJad has a simple interface, which makes it possible to help even a beginner. Minimum steps, the program does not change your phone's settings.

Data recover Gutensoft

Work is carried out with a computer and a phone connected via a USB cable. We install Gutensoft on a PC, laptop... We scan the connected phone and the program shows the deleted files. Restore correspondence, numbers, etc.

Undelete Beta

You can recover almost any data on your phone, emails. including mail. The work process goes like this: we launch the program, select a memory range and that’s it.

I think it's worth trying one of these methods if you're unlucky and the contacts are damaged.

Play Store ry You can search for normal applications, but all this may seem tedious and complicated, so use the knowledge from the release, it should be enough.

In general, I would like to draw your attention to prevention, that is, to save contacts in advance!

That's all, see you next time!

Best regards, Programmer!

Android remains and will be the most popular mobile platform for many years to come. Users mainly use smartphones running this operating system, and, in turn, the main function of smartphones is making calls. Today we will look at the problem where all contacts have disappeared on an Android device.

Contacts from a device running Android OS can disappear for various reasons: a system failure, accidental launch of the full wipe function, virus activity, and so on. For any reason for the lack of contacts, you need to do one thing - restore the phone book. Fortunately, there are several ways to accomplish this task in the most popular operating system.

Method 1: Recover contacts via Google account

The easiest recovery method is that you import the contacts saved in your Google account (of course, if you have them there).

And since each Android device requires logging into a Google account to operate, you probably already have a telephone directory in this profile, which means there will be no problems with recovery.

Please note that depending on the version of the Android OS shell, further actions in your case may differ slightly. If you do not find this or that item, write the name of the device model and Android version - we’ll try to figure it out together.

Method 2: display contacts from SIM card

If you don't store contacts in your Google account, they may be on your device's SIM card. Accordingly, you only need to activate the visibility of contacts saved on the SIM card of your device.

Method 3: Import contacts from a file

Very often, users have a contacts file with a VCF extension on their hands, but do not know how to insert it into their phone. If you have such a file, then you can transfer it to your device, quickly adding to your phone book.

Mobile devices running Android can store a wide variety of data in their memory, from video captured on camera to applications. Contacts are also stored in the phone's memory or on the SIM card inserted into it - very important data, the loss of which can be more than just an unpleasant event for the user. By the way, sometimes you have to face such trouble.

Contacts can be deleted due to negligence by the user himself, when updating the operating system, when resetting to factory settings, during a crash or a virus attack in the end. If you have a backup copy of your contacts saved to a memory card or other device (usually ) there is not much to worry about, because the data can always be restored. It’s a different matter when you never bothered to create a backup in time, in which case there is a risk of losing them forever. However, it is not at all a fact that the situation will be so hopeless.

So what should you do if your contacts on Android are missing and you need to restore them? The developers foresaw this scenario and built into the operating system the ability to restore lost contacts. Here are a few ways to get your Contacts app data back, maybe one of them will help you too.

Recovering contacts using a Google account

If your phone is linked to a Google account, then all contacts on the mobile device should be automatically synchronized with this service, therefore, you can restore contacts on Android through a Google account. The recovery procedure using the service is the same on all devices (you can use a computer). Go to address contacts.google.com and log in using your Google username and password. If your contacts are saved, you will see them immediately. In this case, select the “More” - “Export” option in the menu, and then set the switch to the “Google CSV” or “vCard” position.

Transfer the saved CSV or VCF (vCard) file to your phone, open the Contacts application, select Import/Export from the menu and specify the path to the export file (or the phone will find the file itself).

If your Contacts application does not support working with the CSV format (most likely this will be the case), and you used it when uploading, then convert the file to VCF using the program CSV to VCARD by downloading it from the official website csvtovcard.com/index.html.

If the list of contacts in the Google service is empty, select the “Cancel changes” option in the menu (in the old interface it will be called “Restore contacts”), specify the period for restoration and confirm the operation.

If data recovery is successful, synchronize your phone with your Google account again or transfer contacts to it manually, as described above.

If you have a Samsung phone

Using cloud services, in particular a Google account, is a reliable way to restore contacts on Android after resetting settings, deleting address book entries and other situations; other methods, alas, are not so effective. If you have a Samsung phone, check whether your device uses cloud synchronization with Samsung Cloud. If yes, you can restore contacts from there. Go to the “Cloud and accounts” section, select “Samsung account”, click on the email entry, call up the menu and select “Delete account” from it.

After removing the link, reboot your device and connect your account again. The data will be synchronized. If this does not happen right away, click the "Sync" button. Before doing this, it is advisable to make sure that all addresses are displayed in the phone book. To do this, open “Contacts”, go to the application settings and select the “All contacts” option in the “Show contacts” section.

This is a completely working way to restore contacts on Android after deletion, but again subject to synchronization.

Finding lost contacts in instant messengers

Okay, but how to get back deleted contacts on Android if cloud synchronization was not used? Perhaps you have some messengers installed on your phone, say, Viber or Telegram. In this case, contacts can be restored from the specified programs, which, as a rule, automatically record Android phone book data in their databases. Unfortunately, there is no adequate way to export information from these applications to Contacts, unless you transfer it manually. If you have Viber, you can try using the “Export Contacts Of Viber” application by downloading it from Google Play.

Using third party utilities

If you consider yourself an advanced user, it makes sense to try your luck with third-party specialized utilities. For example, let's see how to recover deleted contacts on your phone using the program iSkysoft Android Data Recovery. After installing the application on your computer and allowing USB debugging on your phone, connect the gadget to your PC and launch Android Data Recovery.

Then check the boxes for the items you need, in this case “Contacts”, select the first scanning mode and start the search procedure.

Upon completion of the procedure (it will take some time), a sorted list of files will appear in the program window. You need "Contacts". Mark the category with a bird and click “Recover”.

However, you must be aware that neither iSkysoft Android Data Recovery nor any other utility guarantees 100% success in recovering deleted data, but the sooner you start the procedure, the greater the chance you will have of returning at least some of the missing contacts.

The program mentioned above is far from the only one of its kind, you can also try the following tools instead:

GT Recovery
Android Data Recovery
Tenorshare Android Data Recovery
EaseUS Mobisaver
7-Data Android Recovery
Data Doctor Recovery SIM Card

Most of these applications have a similar operating algorithm, so we will not dwell on their use in detail. Like the iSkysoft utility, they allow you to rescue data that was lost recently. For example, you accidentally deleted contacts on Android and immediately started looking for a way to restore them. In this case, these tools will probably help you achieve what you want.

Extracting contacts from a SQL database

If you have and are not new to IT, you can try to extract contacts from a database file contacts2.db, provided that this database is old. To do this, use the application Root Explorer copy the directory /data/data/android.providers.contacts/databases to the memory card and transfer the databases folder to the PC. Next, open the contacts2.db file stored in it with the plugin Firefox addon of SQLite manager or its analogue compatible with new versions of Firefox and read contacts.

Contacting the operator

If everything is so bad and nothing helps, you should contact your mobile operator to get details of calls and SMS messages. Of course, most of the data will remain lost, you will receive only digital numbers without any names, but it’s still better than nothing at all. Finally, you can take the device to a service center in the hope that the specialists will still be able to extract something from it, but this will already cost you money.

At this point, we will consider that we have dealt with the topic of how to restore contacts on Android. To summarize all that has been said, we note that the only reliable, effective and correct method of recovery is to use a backup created in advance and saved to an external storage device; everything else, except for cloud synchronization, is a big question. Therefore, if you have not yet made a local backup of your contacts, create it right now, so that later, if something happens, you do not torment yourself with useless accusations of carelessness.

It is better to take care of saving backup copies of contacts in advance. In addition to standard synchronization with Google services, you can install a third-party utility on your Android smartphone to save a backup. But if phone numbers have already been deleted, there are several ways to get them back.

Recovering contacts from cloud storage

All contacts of an Android smartphone are saved in the Google Contacts service. This allows you to work with them on your computer: edit, delete, add to groups and circles on Google+. To return deleted information from your phone's address book, log in to the site.

In the section that opens, check one of the items responsible for the data recovery period:

10 min. back;
1 hour ago;
Yesterday;
1 week back;
Select circles or users.

When you select the first options, the deleted information will be restored as of the specified period. The last option allows you to specify the period for creating the backup to which you plan to rollback manually. After selecting this value, new text fields will appear: days, hours and minutes. The specified time should not exceed 30 days.

Click “Restore” to return deleted numbers for the selected period.

The changes will be applied immediately, and you will be able to view the entries returned to Android in the “All Contacts” table. In the case in the screenshot, a period of 30 days was selected when the phone did not yet have numbers. Therefore, their list became empty. You can return to the previous version of contacts on your smartphone using the “Cancel” link in the pop-up window at the bottom left of the screen.

Note! If synchronization of contacts with Google cloud storage is disabled on your Android, this method will not be able to restore them.

Contact recovery apps

Deleted information is not erased from the smartphone’s memory immediately. Instead, the contacts are marked as deleted and no longer appear in the address book. New entries can be saved in their place. If you recently deleted it, when the old data has not yet been overwritten, you can restore deleted numbers using special utilities for your smartphone.

Open the Play Store and enter the phrase “deleted contacts” or another similar query in the search bar. The found programs will be displayed below. One of the simplest recovery utilities is an application from developer Vjay Rajput.

Go to the program page. Here you can read the user manual, see screenshots and reviews from other users. Click the “Install” button to move to the next step.

Android will ask for permissions that must be granted to the utility:

Contacts;
Photos, multimedia, files;
Device ID and call data.

It is recommended not to change the default values to avoid startup difficulties. But if you do not want to grant certain permissions, you can remove them from the drop-down list. To proceed with the installation, click the “Accept” button.

After that, select “Open” to launch the application for recovering deleted contacts on your Android smartphone. Scanning information will begin immediately after launch. The user will be presented with an initial screen with the name and logo of the program. At this time, a search will be made for deleted entries in the phone’s memory. The process may take several minutes.

When the analysis of the smartphone’s memory is completed, two tabs will appear in the interface: “All” and “Deleted”. The first displays all address book entries found on the Android phone. The second contains only remote numbers. Go to the “Deleted” section and find the deleted contacts that you need to restore. Restoration is performed one record at a time.

Advice! If using this program does not bring the desired result, try other applications from the Play Store.

Searching for deleted numbers via Viber

This method applies only if you used the Viber mobile messenger before deleting data from your address book. It identifies users by phone number, so all contacts whose owners use this program are added to the list. To recover deleted records, install the application. Log in and go to the “Contacts” tab, where the numbers will be available.