Losing contacts on iPhone, iPad, or Mac can be really frustrating. As i always say, worry not. In this step-by-step guide, I’ll show you exactly how to recover lost contacts from iPhone using iCloud.
Contacts are essential part of our device. They help us stay in touch with our friends, family members and colleagues, regardless of what smartphone they have. It’s annoying when you want to get in touch with someone just to discover that some or all of your contacts are missing from your iPhone. This problem is uncommon however, it can happen to iPhone and iPad users.
The issue of losing contacts and other information may occur especially after a major iOS software update, inadvertently erased them or even losing some contacts after syncing or restoring a device from an iTunes backup. Thankfully, Apple has made it really easy to recover lost contacts on iPhone with iCloud and use them on your your devices.
By default, the data on your iPhone, iPad or Mac is automatically backed up to iCloud when your device is connected to a power source,Wi-Fi and when its locked. This means, you can always restore data from iCloud backup and recover your iPhone data in case it gets lost or when you buy a new Apple device.
All iPhone, iPad, mac and iPod touch users get 5 GB of free cloud storage when they create an Apple ID. Therefore, backing up important data like contacts, messages, calendars and mail should not be a problem. Read
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There are multiple way to restore data from iCloud backup and recover your iPhone data. If you’ve accidentally lost some or all of your contacts on your iPhone or iPad after an update or syncing process, there are a few simple steps which you need to know to recover them.
Here is the step-by-step guide which you need to follow to know how to recover lost contacts on iPhone.
How to Restore Lost Contacts from iCloud.com
Before we dive into restoring lost contacts from iPhone, it’s worth noting that the iCloud approach is not the only way to recover your lost contacts. You can recover deleted contacts from an iTunes backup. You can use a third-party tools to recover deleted contacts. However, in my experience, I’ve found iCloud method to be the easiest. Provided that you have access to a web browser such as Safari, Chrome or Microsoft edge you are good to go. Just follow these steps:
Steps to recover lost contacts from iPhone using iCloud
Follow these steps to recover deleted contacts on iPhone.
- Start your browser and navigate to
iCloud.com
Enter your Apple ID and password to sign in.
- Now, tap on “Account Settings” located just next to your name and profile photo.
- Next, tap on “Restore Contacts” in the Advanced section towards the bottom section of the page. A pop-up menu will appear.
- Multiple archives of your contacts list backed up previously to iCloud will be visible from this page. Select an archive and then tap on “Restore” located next to it.
- Confirm the action by clicking “restore” to continue with the restoration process.
The restoration process will take a couple of minutes to complete, particularly if you had a huge list of contacts backed up to iCloud.
- Once the process is complete, iCloud will automatically create a new archive backup as seen in the screenshot below. Keep in mind, the archive you choose will automatically replace the existing contacts on your iPhone, iPad, Mac or iPod touch. Just click on “Done” to close the window and end the process.
Recover lost or deleted iPhone contacts
If you were looking for how to recover deleted contacts on iPhone, there you have it. This recovery process will restore lost contacts to your iPhone, iPad, Mac or iPod touch synced with iCloud.
Restoring lost contacts from the iCloud website can come in handy especially if you own several Apple devices. iCloud restores contacts across all of your devices in no time. Other cloud storage platforms including Google Drive, Dropbox, one drive etc have all made it possible for users to restore their contacts easily should they lose them by accident. Taking into account the usefulness of a users contacts, this is an important feature to have.
Before apple introduced this feature, the only way to restore lost contacts on iPhone was by setting a connection between your iPhone, windows PC or Mac and restore it from previously made backup via iTunes. This method was quite involved and it was still possible to lose the backed up data in case your computer crushed or got lost. Thankfully, that’s now a thing of the past, provided that you use iCloud of course.
Signing off
We trust this guide has helped you to restore all the contacts you lost on your iPhone, iPad, Mac or iPod touch.Have you managed to use iCloud to restore deleted contacts to an iPhone, iPad,, Mac or iPod touch? We’d love to know in the comments section below.