All Deleted/Lost? How to Get Contacts Back on iPhone from iCloud/iTunes
Last Updated on December 1, 2022 by Jack RobertsonThe contacts on your iPhone are your connection to the world - your family, friends, colleagues, clients, doctors, teachers, brokers (insurance, credit, real estate, stock, etc).
What will happen if you accidentally delete any one of them? You may lose contact with the person. What will you do to get it back on your iPhone? Well, the straight way is visiting the person’s house or office.
Easy as it is, but no, it’s too inconvenient. It's the 2020s now, is there any quicker, smarter, and more advanced way to recover those deleted iPhone contacts? Sure, there’s a lot. And here in this article, I will give you several methods and you can easily have your contacts back on your iPhone.
Restore iPhone Contacts
- Method 1: How to Extract Deleted Contacts from iTunes or iCloud
- Method 2: How to Retrieve Contact by Restoring iPhone Backup（Factory Reset Needed）
- Method 3: How to Find Lost Contacts on your iPhone Device
- Method 4: How to Download Lost Contacts from iCloud.com
- Method 5: Get Your Deleted iPhone Contacts Back via Time Machine
Method 1: How to Recover Contacts from both iTunes and iCloud Backup
For the first method, we will use a professional backup extractor - echoshare iOS Data Recovery for iTunes/iCloud, to recover your deleted contacts to iPhone.
The default processes of data recovery from iCloud and iTunes backup require you to reset your iPhone first. That will lead to data loss - the old backup you restore most likely won’t have the data your iPhone produces lately.
In this case, simply following Apple Support to recover from iCloud or iTunes backup will be a less smart option. So, this is where backup extractors help - they can extract files including contacts from the previous iCloud and iTunes backup to your iPhone without any reset and surely no data loss.
echoshare iOS Data Recovery is exactly one of the leading icons among all backup extractors. With it, you’re able to break your iTunes and iCloud backup into pieces and look for the iPhone contacts, finally, recover them back to your iPhone.
Data loss? That’s the last thing you would think about when iOS Data Recovery is there to help. By scanning the backup files, the program is able to display all the data inside the backup by categories. You’re available to select Contacts and recover all the phone numbers to your iPhone.
Download it and let’s get started!
Steps to recover contacts to iPhone using iOS Data Recovery
First thing first, prepare for the deleted contact recovery.
Take out a USB lightning, connect your iPhone to your computer. And launch iOS Data Recovery.
On the program’s interface, choose iPhone Data Recovery. Then, you will see three options, you only need to focus on two:Recover from iTunes Backup File and Recover from iCloud.
Make your choice and follow the corresponding steps below.
Option 1: Recover contacts from iTunes backup file
Under the Recover from iTunes Backup File tab, the program will display all the iTunes backup files. Select the one that you think contains the contacts you need. Click Start.
Next, the scan starts and when it’s done, all the files inside this backup will be displayed. Select the contacts you need and recover them.
Option 2: Recover contacts from iCloud
Under the Recover from iCloud tab, log in to your iCloud account.
Next, choose iCloud Backup, click Start.
On the interface, you will see all the records of your iCloud backup file, choose one that has the contacts you need. Click Download.
After all, uncheck the Select All option, and tick only the Contacts, click Next.
There, you can see all the contacts from this iCloud backup. Find the deleted contact(s) and recover it to your computer first - later you can transfer it back to your iPhone.
Method 2: How to Recover Contact by Restoring from iPhone Backup (Factory Reset Needed)
We will take advantage of your previous iCloud or iTunes backup. Make sure you’ve backed up your contacts before.
Steps to recover contacts from iTunes/iCloud backup
Step 1: Reset your iPhone
Unlock the device, go to Settings, tap General - Reset - Erase All Content and Settings. Enter your password to confirm.
Step 2: Activate your iPhone
Next, turn on your iPhone after the reset is complete. Connect it to a Wi-Fi network. Then, follow the on-screen instructions to set up your iPhone just like what you did when you first bought this iPhone.
Step 3: Restore contacts from backup
Keep setting up and you will see a screen displaying “Apps & Data”, there, make your choice - whether you want to restore the deleted iPhone contacts from iTunes or iCloud backup.
Option 1: Restore from iCloud Backup
Tap on it, sign in to your iCloud account on this phone and choose the iCloud backup file you want to recover. Each backup file will come with a date, you can choose one based on that.
Option 2: Restore from iTunes backup
Connect your iPhone to a computer that you use to back up your iPhone with iTunes. Launch iTunes, and go to the management page. Choose Restore Backup and finish the restore as prompted.
After the restore, continue to set up your iPhone. When it’s done, you will have the deleted iPhone contacts saved on your iPhone again.
Method 3: How to Find Lost Contacts on your iPhone Device
Actually, we don’t need any backup and still can find the deleted contacts from your iPhone. Here, we will use echoshare iPhone Data Recovery - a powerful contact recovery data from your iPhone without reset.
Through a deep scan, iPhone Data Recovery will detect all the deleted data on your iPhone, displaying all the items that you’re available to get back.
You may not know that when we delete things on a phone, there’ll be some “remains” of that data, we call it cache. iPhone Data Recovery will find these remaining caches and recover your iPhone contacts with them.
So, with this program, you can easily find all the deleted contacts from your iPhone and recover the ones that you need back to your iPhone with ease. All you need is to click that Scan button and wait for everything to complete.
Now, let’s see how we do it:
Step 1: Download iPhone Data Recovery
On your computer, download and install iPhone Data Recovery. Launch it after that.
Step 2: Start to scan the deleted contacts
Now, connect your iPhone to the computer with a USB cable. On the program’s interface, choose Recover from iPhone and click Start Scan. It will start to detect all the deleted contacts and other data on your iPhone.
Step 3: Get your deleted iPhone contact(s) back
The scan will be done in minutes, when it’s done, choose Contacts from the right panel and tick the Only display deleted item(s) option. Now, only the deleted contacts on this iPhone will be displayed. Choose the one you need and click Recover to Device to get it back.
Method 4: How to Download Lost Contacts from iCloud.com
The next method you can try is to log into iCloud.com and download the deleted iPhone contact from there.
iCloud.com is the web access of your iCloud, from there, you can see some of your iPhone/iPad data, like Photos, Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Notes, etc. Once you’ve enabled iCloud on your iPhone, it will automatically sync these categories of data to the cloud so that you can share, transfer, and find your iPhone data when the phone is not around.
To use it to recover your iPhone deleted contacts is pretty easy, follow these:
Step 1
Open Safari or any other browser on your iPhone, go to iCloud.com, and log in with your iCloud account.
Step 2
Click Account Settings, then choose Advanced from the bottom left corner, and then Restore Contacts.
There, you will see a bunch of archives that store all the previous iPhone contacts. Choose one based on the date and click Restore. Click again to confirm.
Method 5: Get Your Deleted iPhone Contacts Back via Time Machine
If you have a Mac computer that:
- is registered to your Apple ID;
- has Time Machine enabled;
- the contacts on your Mac is included on the Time Machine backup（go to System Reference - Time Machine - Options to find out）;
Then, there’re chances that you can retrieve your deleted contacts from the Time Machine backup. This is how you do it:
Step 1: Connect your Time Machine disk to the Mac
Step 2: Run Time Machine on your Mac
- If you've added Time Machine to your Mac's menu bar while setting it up, simple click on the Time Machine icon from the bar and choose Enter Time Machine.
- Or you can go to the System Preference window and open the Time Machine there.
Once it's open, you will see multiple panels that each of them contain one version of your Mac's history backup files.
Step 3: Recover the deleted iPhone contacts
Now, locate the exact backup file you need by scroll on the timeline from the right edge of your screen or clicking the arrows next to the panels.
On the panel, choose the contact(s) you need, and click Restore to get them back. You will find them again on your Mac's address book
FAQs
It's pretty easy to back up your iPhone contacts, one of the easiest ways is using iCloud.
On your iPhone, go to Settings > [Apple ID] > iCloud. There, scroll down and find Contacts, make sure it’s checked. Next, scroll down and find iCloud Backup. Tap on it and tick the option.
From then on, every time you connect the iPhone to Wi-Fi, charge it, or lock it, iCloud will automatically back up the contacts and other selected data on your iPhone.
There're many reasons for missing contacts on an iPhone. It can be a glitch that is caused by a complete jailbreak or software update. And sometimes, restarting your iPhone will sometimes cause your contacts disappear.
To view your contacts saved on the iCloud, you need to enable iCloud to back up your contacts on your iOS device first.
Go to Settings - Apple ID - iCloud, there, tap Contacts.
Next, scroll down and find iCloud backup, tap on it. Hit Back Up Now to let iCloud save your iPhone contacts.Now.
Open a browser and sign in to icloud.com. Choose Contacts from the listed icons and start to check the contacts.