How to restore contacts without iCloud

Hello Graccie.

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities. It sounds like you want to recover contacts that are missing or that were accidentally deleted. We noticed that you're coming from the following resource below:

If you accidentally deleted your calendars, bookmarks, or contacts from iCloud - Apple Support

To confirm, were you syncing your contacts with iCloud? You can confirm this by goin to the iCloud website and signing in with your Apple ID: iCloud - Apple

Once you sign in, select "Contacts". If you see all your contacts populate there, you can restore them easily to your iPhone by following these steps: Navigate to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Contacts. If the switch is turned on, turn it off and wait a moment. Then turn it back on and select "Merge".

If you were not using iCloud to sync your contacts, you might want to check the email accounts that are linked to your iPhone. Go to Settings > Mail > Accounts. Make sure that your email accounts have Contacts enabled.

We hope this information is useful. Cheers.