I somehow lost a bunch of contacts on my iphone. I checked my iCloud storage and all the lost contacts are stored in iCloud, but when I try to restore, my phone contact list does not get restored. Any help?

Open Contacts app. Tap on Groups in the upper left corner. Make sure all groups are checked.

Also go to Settings/[your name]/iCloud and make sure the Contacts switch is on. This syncs contacts between your phone and iCloud. It is not the same as iCloud backups. In fact, anything synced is not included in a backup.

417ariesgirl wrote:

Finally figured out what you were talking about! I kept going into the "Settings" first then Contacts and Phone. The Groups is right in the phone on the Home Screen. Where you would go to look for a Contact. Whew! You made it way harder than it needed to be. Soon as I did it they all showed up.

Home Screen - Phone Icon- (like you would be placing a call or looking up a contact) - Contacts - Upper Left Groups - Check All Groups.

Umm, look at my post marked “Solved” at the top of this page, where it says:

Open Contacts app. Tap on Groups in the upper left corner. Make sure all groups are checked.

It has nothing to do with the model of the phone. Things to check:

• Do you share an Apple ID with anyone who may be deleting them?
• Open Contacts - if you see Groups in the upper let corner tap on it and verify that all groups are checked
• Go to Settings/Contacts and verify that Default Account is one that is currently enabled (check in Settings/Contacts/Accounts)

You need to provide a lot more information if you want someone to be able to help.

Where are your contacts stored? Contacts are associated with an email account, so is that account iCloud, gmail, yahoo, AOL, MS Outlook, MS Exchange, or some other email account? Or more than one? You can see what accounts may hold your contacts by going to Settings/Contacts/Accounts.

Contacts are not stored in backups, unless they don’t sync to any email account (these are called “on your iPhone”), so restoring a backup will not restore contacts except in this unusual instance.

When you open the Contacts app and tap on Groups at the top left, what groups do you see? Are they all checked?

Finally figured out what you were talking about! I kept going into the "Settings" first then Contacts and Phone. The Groups is right in the phone on the Home Screen. Where you would go to look for a Contact. Whew! You made it way harder than it needed to be. Soon as I did it they all showed up.

Home Screen - Phone Icon- (like you would be placing a call or looking up a contact) - Contacts - Upper Left Groups - Check All Groups.

Are you logged in to iCloud on your phone? (Your name will appear at the top in Settings). Tap on your name, then iCloud, and turn on the switch for Contacts. Make sure you have a data connection.

I lost a lot of my contacts as well, even though I didn't have them directly linked to an email address. (I have multiple email addresses.) I tried many of the suggestions listed below. Nothing worked.

As a last resort, I went to my contacts app and clicked groups. All of my groups were checked. However, a very old yahoo email address I use to use was not listed in the list of groups. So I went to >settings>contacts>accounts. There I added the old yahoo email address and BOOM. All of my contacts came back. (I must have used that old address years ago when I initially set up my contacts.)

Sure hope this helps!

Open Contacts, tap on Groups in the upper right and make sure all groups are checked.

Did you delete or disable any email accounts? Most contacts are managed in the server associated email accounts. Examples are Microsoft Outlook and MS Exchange, gmail, yahoo, AOL, etc.

If your contacts were associated with iCloud, see If you accidentally deleted your calendars, bookmarks, or contacts from iCloud - Apple Support

polymnia wrote:

I don't have a Contacts app. I first noticed that a bunch of my contacts were gone about a month ago, and I've managed to get a few back. Is there any way of accessing what has theoretically been backed up when my phone told me I was supposed to plug it in to power and connect to wi-fi?

You have a Contacts app, whether you know it or not. To see it tap Phone, then Contacts. This is the Contacts app. There’s also a separate Contacts app that appears on the Home screen. That one you can delete, but it is just another view into the contacts in the Phone app. And if you don’t have (or don’t know about) the Contacts app, how do you know any are missing? The only place they appear is in the Contacts app.

Contacts are not saved in a backup, because they sync to one or more email accounts. Go to Settings/Contacts/Accounts. See which accounts list Contacts just below the account name. These are the source of your contacts.

Report back and we can address ways to recover them (it is different for each email account).

I had this same problem. Some groups in my iPhone Contact list that were not checked. Once I ticked them it fixed my problem.

The missing contacts “belong” to email accounts. If you delete the account the contacts go also. The only solution is to add the accounts back, unless you also deleted the accounts from the mail server; then they are unrecoverable.

That’s the downside of multiple email accounts. If you must have multiple accounts, when you set them up do not turn on Contacts in the account settings; just reserve one email account with Contacts enabled, either an iCloud account or an Office 365 or gmail account that you will never delete.

Groups will only appear if you have more than one contact group. But contacts are associated with email accounts, so if you have deleted an email account the contacts that are part of it will disappear also. Might that be the answer?

Contacts are “attached” to email accounts. When you add an email account to your phone one of the options is to enable the contacts to be synced to the phone. Without know what email account the contacts are associated with it’s rather difficult to tell you how to recover them.

I am having the same issue! Just a few days ago my iphone inadvertently deleted 1000 of contacts! Now, those people only come through as phone numbers when they send me a text but if I search for them, they are nowhere to be found in my Iphone. The contacts are in my icloud. When I tried to restore the contacts nothing happened AND as recommended - I checked and all groups are checked.

Any more suggestions?