I update to IOS 17, and lost all my contacts stored on my iPhone. Now my only contacts on my phone are those stored in iCloud. How do I get my contacts stored back on my iPhone? I have updated to the most recent IOS 17.0.2.
[Re-titled by Moderator]
Hey there Msmousiemouse,
If the contacts that are missing were only stored on the iPhone and not synced to any other service, like iCloud, then they are likely not recoverable. Is it possible they were also synced to iCloud at any point, or are they not appearing in the "All iCloud" list?
If they are not included in "All iCloud", check to see if there were any changes made to how they appear on your device. Go to Settings > Contacts > Accounts, then enable Contacts for the accounts you might have synced with previously.
The next thing you can check is how they're set to appear by looking at Settings > Contacts > Default Account.
If you still cannot locate the contacts, contact Apple Support: Get Support
Take care!
All I did was shut phone off and turned back on. All contacts came back. Also microphone works now.
I fixed this by going into settings>icloud>(apps using iCloud) contacts > toggle to keep contacts on phone. Then turn the phone off and on again.
That brought my contacts back to everything. Then I just toggled iCloud back on for contacts and merged them again.
If your husband moves from IOS 17.1.2 to to IOS 17.2 (which I believe was released yesterday 12 December 2023) you may find this fixes the problem as it has done with my own iPhone)
Hey Msmousiemouse,
Thank you for using the Apple Support Community. Due to the nature of your issue, you may find more information by contacting Apple Support directly using the link below.
Take care.
Pressing on the list of Icloud contacts (in the Contacts app) from my OLD phone and air dropping to my new phone worked for me. Had to do it a couple times because not all were importing. Had to select “create new contacts” because “import contacts” was not capturing all. Now I have many duplicates on the new phone but at least all are back, with profile pics too.
Did a full delete/reset and I was told not to back up from the most recent and do the one before and it worked great 👍🏻 stupid that we’ve had to do this though 🤦🏻♀️
Just updated yesterday, wished I hadn't, same thing all contacts on cloud but not showing on phone and have no clue who is calling. Apple recommend resetting phone is the only way to get the contacts back !
Agreed, massive blunder from Apple. The fact that it wasn’t addressed quickly is also very disappointing.
THIS IS WHAT WORKED FOR ME:
Disable ALL Siri search and suggestions access on Messages and on Contacts through settings. Doesn’t help recover anything but now I’m not losing any more contacts and I can add back in the people I lost that my phone wasn’t allowing before.
switching back to android asap, but this will at least let me rest easy that I’m not losing more in the meantime!
Truly hoping this helps someone else!!
They are on my iCloud as you can see in the pic, the update has taken all my contacts off my phone. I am not able to airdrop from my iPad as a setting of “contacts only”, it has to be set as “everyone”, it has always been contacts only and I have always airdropped back and forth between my iPads and iPhone. Not only that, my contacts are not showing up on my Apple Watch, it is only showing my “phone” numbers as to “who” is messaging me.
I am having this exact same problem. iPhone SE updated from iOS 16.x to iOS 17.1.1. Using a laptop and logging into iCloud, all contacts still exist. But phone no longer has them. All texts no longer show names but only phone #s. I have no idea who’s calling because contacts are gone. Was online w/ Apple help for hours last night. No resolution. I’m considering trying to wipe the phone clean, next. Has ANYONE figured out how to resolve this? It is infuriating! I travel, and I need my phone AND the contacts to be able to be displayed.
You can export all your contacts as a single vCard and use it as a backup. Click the ... in the sidebar, choose Select All Contacts, then follow the instructions above to export a vCard.
You can send the file to the iPhone attached to the email
Import, export or print contacts on iCloud.com – Apple Support
Unbelievable - F.F.S! - IOS 17.2 does indeed fix the problem - I was at the point of buying Android and dumping my iPhone after all these years. Crazy how such a piffling bug could have been allowed to develop in a critical element of the iPhone's functions - Contacts are linked to many other critical apps and without it functioning, those messaging and other apps are rendered useless. Then to silently fix it within an update without (as far as I can see) an admission of existence of the problem... Anyway, hopefully this and similar issues will not recur.
I also had this issue happen to me a few days ago when I updated my iphone15. My wife “Who is Samsung user.” helped me figure out how to fix this issue. Unfortunately the only way to fix this issue is if you have an old phone or device that still has all of your contacts stored. If you do then go to you Contacts, select list on the top left corner and you should see All iCloud list of contacts. Press and hold that list and you should see a prompt come up that says export. Once you do then click on it and Air Drop the list into your new iPhone and they should pop up. Hope this helps.
This is a colossal blunder on Apple's part -- a system update that obliterates one of the key features of the operating system, phone contacts.
I am going through the exact same thing with my phone! After I updated the software, I'm experiencing this!! I also can't scroll down in my texts threads either. I spoke with apple and they advised me try to reinstall the update by putting it in recovery mode then selecting "update" instead of "restore" and nothing changed. I'm at my wits end!
Missing contacts with iPhone iOS 17 update
