How to get phone numbers back on iphone

For many people, their iPhone contacts are a lifeline, as we all use our contact lists for making calls, sending emails, and texting friends and family. It’s so easy to use a contact list that most people struggle to remember even familiar phone numbers and addresses that they used to memorize. While contact lists have an inherent organization, you can also organize them in any way you want to make it easier to find particular individuals for home or work.

Contents

• Recovering contacts using iCloud on your iPhone
• Recovering contacts using iCloud.com
• Adding new contacts

But what happens if a contact, or multiple contacts, are accidentally deleted or lost during the sync process, or when restoring from a backup? While that can be scary, it’s easily rectified if you know how to recover lost contacts on an iPhone, and iCloud makes it easy. Here’s how to restore contacts on an iPhone from iCloud using iOS 14.

To avoid losing your data and contacts, check out our guide on how to backup an iPhone and how to use iCloud.

Recovering contacts using iCloud on your iPhone

If you’ve lost or deleted a contact by mistake, don’t panic. Contacts are set to sync with iCloud by default. You can go to Settings and turn them off and on to sync to your iPhone again.

Step 1: Go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud.

Step 2: Turn Contacts off and select Keep on My iPhone.

Step 3: Turn Contacts on and select Merge. Wait a little while, and you should see the deleted contacts back on your iPhone.

Recovering contacts using iCloud.com

This is another trusted method for retrieving lost contact information — as well as other things like Reminders and Calendar events — and it comes directly from Apple. All you need is a computer, your Apple ID and password, and a bit of time.

Step 1: Pull up iCloud.com and use your Apple ID and password to log in.

Step 2: When you’ve signed in, hit the Settings button.

Step 3: Go down to the Advanced section and select Restore Contacts.

Step 4: You’ll find a list of archives you’ve created in the past. Using their dates, locate an archive that should contain your full contacts list and hit Restore.

Step 5: Hit Restore once more to confirm and start the restoration. Afterward, you’ll get an email at the address linked to your Apple ID.

Adding new contacts

These steps will update and replace all of your contacts, rather than merely adding any that are missing. So, assuming you’ve added new contacts since the last backup, you will lose those new contacts. The good news is that your iPhone will automatically backup your new contacts before it completes this restore, so you will be able to retrieve them later.

You can retrieve your new contacts by following the first three steps above. When you do, make sure you select the archive made on the same day you restored your phone. Of course, if you accidentally restore with the wrong archive, no worries. You can use the same process if you accidentally select an incorrect archive to restore your contacts.

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How to quickly recover lost contacts from iCloud

Have you lost some of your iPhone’s contacts? Don’t worry, we’ll show you 2 easy ways to get them back from iCloud in no time!

What you’ll find out:

• 2 fast methods to get your lost contacts via iCloud

• Bonus: how to use your iCloud backup to recover contacts

• Top 4 reasons for losing iPhone contacts

• How to avoid losing iPhone contacts

Here are the 2 fastest available options to recover your contacts from iCloud:

1. Merge iCloud contacts (if the “Contacts” option has been turned “On”)
2. Export contacts from iCloud (if the “Contacts” option has been turned “Off” but you previously synced your contacts to iCloud)

1. Merge iCloud contacts

If you enabled iCloud contacts sync, there's a good chance you'll also have lost the contacts on your iCloud account. You can check this: log in to icloud.com with your Apple ID, click on “Contacts” and then check if the lost contact is still there. If it is, you can recover that lost contact easily:

1. Go to Settings → iCloud

2. Turn off “Contacts”

3. Tap “Keep on My iPhone” when the popup message appears

   
   Keep contacts on iPhone

4. Turn on the “Contacts” again and choose “Merge”

5. After a while, you should be able to see the deleted contact back on your iPhone

Keep in mind it may take a few minutes for all your contacts to be restored. If this method doesn't solve the problem, you can also try extracting the .vcf file as explained below or using iPhone Backup Extractor.

2. Export contacts from iCloud

If the “Contacts” option has been turned “Off”, but you had previously synced your contacts to iCloud, you can export the deleted contacts from the iCloud to computer, and then import them from computer back to your iPhone.

Here are the steps to follow:

1. Go to your iCloud account and make sure all contact details are updated

2. Open icloud.com and log in

3. Click on "Contacts"

4. In "Settings", click on the cog icon on the bottom left and press "Export vCard..."

   
   iCloud's contacts interface: export vCard...

5. Save this file on your desktop

6. Send an email with the .vcf file to yourself

7. On your iPhone, open the email and tap on the attachment. Tap the "Add Contacts" button. You'll be asked if you’d like to create new contacts or merge them with what you already have in your list.

Still having issues? Use iPhone Backup Extractor to restore contacts via iCloud backup

If none of the above two methods worked, the next best option is to use iPhone Backup Extractor in order to recover your lost contacts from previous iTunes or iCloud backups you’ve made.

Top 4 reasons for losing iPhone contacts

1. Failed upgrading or downgrading iOS: from example, from iOS 10 to iOS 11 or vice versa.

2. Having your iPhone jailbroken: whilst removing software restrictions imposed by iOS, you could also be losing important data.

3. iPhone reset: you should reset your iPhone back to factory settings only as a last resort, as this can also lead to data loss. If you choose to do this, make sure you backup your data beforehand.

4. You lost or broke your iPhone.

How to avoid losing iPhone contacts

You’ll probably want to make sure this won’t happen to you again:

• The best way to prevent losing contacts is to regularly backup your data. You can do this by using either iCloud or iTunes: while iCloud offers to store a backup of the iPhone data in Apple’s servers, iTunes will let you backup iPhone data directly on your PC or Mac.

• You can also export contact lists on a regular basis as a .vcf file and email them to yourself. They'll be safe in your inbox.

We recommend using at least one of the two methods.

Do you have any stories to share on recovering contacts? Do let us know, we’d be happy to hear from you!