I lost more than half my contacts a month or so ago. I was told by the Verizon salesman that I couldn’t get them back because all the companies I give access to, like Comcast, can steal them and it probably happened when my husband changed our Comcast email password and I was unaware of this until I noticed I wasn’t getting new emails. Wouldn’t my automatic backups put this info in the cloud for me to retrieve?
iPhone 8 Plus, iOS 15
Contacts are not included in a backup, because they sync from email servers. So if you remove an email account any contacts managed by that email account server will be removed. This article explains→Manage and delete contacts on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support.
But the real question is why don’t you have any backups? The only reason to not back up an iPhone or any computing device is if you don’t care if the stored information is lost; you won’t miss any photos saved on the phone, text conversations, calendars, notes, etc. Disasters will happen; you need to be prepared for them.
Here is information on backing up, including how to assure your phone is backed up every night automatically while you sleep→How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support
Start here - Contacts
It has nothing to do with “steal”; I’m afraid many Verizon salesman are absolutely clueless. One of my associates was a support manager for Verizon stores. Several years ago Verizon fired all of their field support people, and replaced them with minimally trained sales people. My associate was laid off after 20 years of service with the company.
The iPhone, as with most computers also, are not the primary repository of contacts. The email servers for your email accounts are the master repository of contacts; your iPhone syncs to the email servers to display contacts. If you delete an email account or lose access to that account that is hosting some or all of your contacts those contacts will disappear. So most likely the contacts that you lost were hosted on your Comcast account. They should come back if you reconnect to the email server. As the password has changed, the easiest way to do that is to go to Settings/Mail/Accounts, tap on the Comcast account and delete it. Then restart your phone, go back to the same location and add the account back.
Next, go to Settings/Contacts and change the Default Account to one that you will never delete.
Optionally, get an 3rd party app like Groups and move all of your Comcast contacts to the default account. If you have a Mac you can also do this transfer on your Mac.
I have lost my contacts please help me I don't have any backups
Lost Contacts
