List of VIP contacts deleted after iOS13 update!

Arghh! Why can't we delete posts.?!

Now people may well end up wasting time by reading the incorrect post above.

Please read this instead. I have experimented more.

Solution:

I had to turn on iCloud Mail on my iPhone and iPad, which brought back the VIP list.

Unfortunately, the VIP list disappears the moment I turn iCloud Mail back off.

This was not the case before.

Now I have to keep iCloud Mail, which I never need, turned on, as a condition for seeing the VIP list.

I don't mind that so much, as the fact that this condition was introduced with now warning or explanation.

Fortunately, I had synced those VIP contacts to the cloud at one point and was able to retrieve them.

People who use VIP but have never used iCloud Mail may have no way of recovering their VIP lists.

Not cool.

PS: I came back to this issue, and summarized my solution below.

Caveat: all of this is provisional based on trial-and-error.

I found that the VIP list syncing seems to depend on whether you turn on iCloud Contacts or not. The catch with that is that I sync Google Address book to the Contacts app. When two competing address books sync to the Contacts app, each is listed separately under Groups with no apparent problem. However, whenever I add a new contact, that is saved by default to the Apple iCloud Address Book and is not the Google Address Book. There seems to be no way to change this default setting. Another way of nudging (twisting your arm) to use Apple products.

The solution for people like me that don't use iCloud Mail or Contacts on their iPhones but want to avoid losing their VIP lists seems to be:

1) Before updating your iOS turn on iCloud Mail (and iCloud Contacts) at least once to sync your VIP list to the cloud.

2) If the list disappears after updating, turn on iCloud Mail and iCloud Contacts and refresh your iPhone/iPad's native Mail app to see if the VIP list appears.

3) If it does, then turn off iCloud Mail and ICloud Contacts and enjoy your day (when I tried turning off earlier it removed the list, but it doesn't now. No idea why? Perhaps it was the order in which I turned off iCloud Mail and Contacts?) .

4) If it doesn't, then swear at you-know-who-is-responsible, and input the VIPs from scratch, while keeping iCloud Mail and iCloud Contacts switched on while you do so, as this should sync the new VIP list into your other devices, saving you extra work.

We should not have to waste hours like this each time you-know-who screws up.

Sounds like I am not the only person to have experienced this:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8548915

The Pixel 4 is looking very good right now.

AppleQer wrote:

Arghh! Why can't we delete posts.?!

Now people may well end up wasting time by reading the incorrect post above.

Please read this instead. I have experimented more.

Solution:

I had to turn on iCloud Mail on my iPhone and iPad, which brought back the VIP list.

Unfortunately, the VIP list disappears the moment I turn iCloud Mail back off.

This was not the case before.

Now I have to keep iCloud Mail, which I never need, turned on, as a condition for seeing the VIP list.

I don't mind that so much, as the fact that this condition was introduced with now warning or explanation.

Fortunately, I had synced those VIP contacts to the cloud at one point and was able to retrieve them.

People who use VIP but have never used iCloud Mail may have no way of recovering their VIP lists.

Not cool.

And Arrgghhh, why can't we remove "Solved" when we find out the solution didn't actually work, and we find a different solution and explanation? Please see the posts marked "Helpful". Again, it seems like I am not the only person to notice this: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6190601 Apparently, it would be too confusing to let the person whose answers were marked as Solved keep his or her points after it was unmarked. That apparently outweighs the confusion of everyone who comes to read this thread.

Just to give some background:

I have iCloud Mail on my iMac but no longer use it on my iPhone or iPad. Instead, I use Google and Outlook mail and contacts that I sync via the native Mail and Contacts apps.

Even after I had turned off iCloud Mail and iCloud Contacts on my iPhone and iPad, the VIP list had remained intact until now. For some reason, this new update has deleted the VIP list on both my iPad and iPhone.

Edit: Found a solution

Fortunately the iCloud Mail on my iMac had synced the VIPs to the cloud, so I was able to retrieve them on my iPhone after turning iCloud Mail back on temporarily and turning iCloud Contacts on temporarily. I am not sure which of these actions resolved the problem.

I have now turned iCloud mail back off on my iPhone and iPad as I don't need it, and I also stopped syncing my Apple/iCloud contacts, but the VIP list is still there.

I was tempted to leave iCloud contacts on but each time I add a new contact, that info is synced by default to the iCloud address book, not the Google Address book. There appears to be no option to change this. Apple seems to be twisting my arm here.

Anyway, I am not a happy camper. This is an appalling flaw. Not everyone has iCloud and Apple Contacts syncing. Not syncing either never affected my VIP list before - including when it come to updating the iOS. If I hadn't found this solution (toggle iCloud mail and contacts on and off), I would have needed to re-input 40 or so VIP contacts manually in both the iPad and iPhone!

I noticed another inconvenience. The VIP list on the cloud that I had to use to replace the ones deleted from my devices was out-of-date, so I had to search for and manually input all the new ones.

And the VIP lists do not seem to be syncing properly even though I have iCloud Mail turned on for my iMac, iPhone and iPad.

Sigh...

PS2: As well as Step 1), I would turn on iCloud Mail and iCloud Contacts on your Mac in order to sync the VIP list to the native Mail app on the Mac also (not just to the cloud).