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Several of my iPhone contacts have disappeared

I've had about 7 or 8 of my contacts disappear. In the messages history, their names are replaced by phone numbers. I had to click on "info" and "Create new contact" to get it back. How did this happen. I know I did not delete them from my contact list. How can I fix - seems like a bug to me.


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iPhone XR, iOS 16

Posted on May 1, 2023 5:22 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 25, 2024 2:52 PM

I’ve tried this several times…it didn’t work

32 replies

Dec 28, 2023 7:48 PM in response to Yo55

Same happened to me this just fixed it. I hope this helps.


So go to Settings > Tap iCloud > Find Contacts > Toggle it off if it is on > Choose keep on my iPhone, and then toggle it on again; While if it is off, turn it on > Then iCloud will ask you what would you like to do with existing local contacts on your iPhone > Tap on Merge. And your contacts will get back again.

May 1, 2023 5:50 PM in response to Yo55

Contacts sync to email accounts. If you recently deleted or changed the password of an email account the contacts that synced from it will disappear. You would have to log in to that email account to recover the lost contacts. If all of your contacts were synced to an iCloud email account see→iCloud: Restore contacts, calendars, and more in iCloud Settings for options to restore them.

Jan 22, 2024 7:37 PM in response to Yo55

Thank you!!! I cannot say thank you enough. You resolved many hours of frustration and sadness after 75% of my contacts disappeared without warning. The randomness of the loss of information, especially contact photos that I would never be able to find again, was truly jarring. I know it's just a phone and just information. Alas I am human, there are memories tied to this information.

Mar 2, 2024 11:14 AM in response to Mustyshotgun

I got a new iphone yesterday. Many of my most recent contacts were missing, and although supposed to be backed up on icloud, were not. After I got my university exchange mail account working, these contacts appeared again. I find this very odd because there was no way I was aware that the contacts I was putting in would be in any way related to my email account. Many of the contacts are not ones I created or used with my university email account. Very frustrating to solve. Does that mean if I change email accounts I lose my contacts???

May 1, 2023 5:29 PM in response to Yo55

Yo55 Said:

"Several of my contacts have disappeared: I've had about 7 or 8 of my contacts disappear. In the messages history, their names are replaced by phone numbers. I had to click on "info" and "Create new contact" to get it back. How did this happen. I know I did not delete them from my contact list. How can I fix - seems like a bug to me."

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Troubleshooting Disappeared Contacts:

Indeed, it seems to be a bug. So, did you just install an update? Report this to Apple.


Reporting this Bug to Apple:

Do your Part: These are user-to-user forums. Apple rarely reads these forums on their own time as it is. So, provide Apple with feedback on this.  Apple wont get back to you directly, but the more they hear of this, the more they will know what is going on, and what needs to be fixed.

To Provide Feedback:

  1. Go Here: Feedback - iPhone - Apple
  2. Select: "Bug Report" for the "Feedback Type"
  3. Comment: on when this all began, and how you have troubleshot this, thus far. Include the URL of this thread.
  4. Proceed form there as necessary

Mar 10, 2024 4:26 PM in response to Yo55

So my contacts were visible on icloud.com, but missing from my phone. Just 6 or 7 contacts. After many attempts to fix the issue the one solution I found was to make a small change to the contact on iCloud.com. Add a middle initial or state in the address field. After I clicked save it added the whole contact to my phone.

Several of my iPhone contacts have disappeared

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