Restore iPhone 4 Contacts?

Question

Level 1

18 points

Restore iPhone 4 Contacts?

I recently purchased my wife a new iPhone 4. We backed up her 3G and started the iPhone 4 by restore all her programs, data, etc. from that. Worked fine. However, a day or two ago her phone went completely dead. We reset it and it came back on, seeming to be working fine. However, today she noticed that virtually all her contacts are gone (not 100%, maybe the few remaining are on her sim card or something?). In any event, everything else seems fine and I want to know the best way to restore just her contacts. My first thought was mobile me, since we sync her phone to mobile me. However, that now has the small contact list as well (apparently it already sync'd with the lost contact list on the iPhone). Can we restore just the contacts from iTunes? How many backup versions does it keep? Does mobile me keep a backup archive. The most recent, prior to the erasing, contact list would be ideal. I don't want the phone to sync with iTunes and lose the backup. Thanks.

iPhone 4, iOS 4

Posted on Dec 1, 2010 10:13 AM

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Answer 1

sn4p2k

Level 4

1,228 points

Dec 1, 2010 11:09 AM in response to jsl2

if you have the contacts on your computer you can sync your contacts in but it might delete them on the computer as well.. as far as the backups go you cant just restore contacts its all or nothing with the backups

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Answer 2

jsl2 Author

Level 1

18 points

Dec 1, 2010 5:13 PM in response to sn4p2k

I don't have them on my computer. I agree that it would be very easy in that case.

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Answer 3

Garydp

Level 1

15 points

Dec 1, 2010 5:44 PM in response to jsl2

once you have put them back on the iphone download idrive. backup your contacts you can view them online too. then if you ever have to restore your iphone or get a new one just download the app and you can restore your contacts.

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Answer 4

jsl2 Author

Level 1

18 points

Dec 1, 2010 6:29 PM in response to Garydp

Sounds like a good idea. I assume that is easy to do.

It certainly is necessary. In my view, Apple's syncing is horrible. I have no end of problem with iPhone and iPad, and mobileme is horrible. Disappointed, but I am sort of locked in. (as another example, I found my wife's not to dated contact list on her iPad so I figured I could use those. However, when I sync'd the contacts and calendar from the iPad to the computer, it whiped everything else off the iPad!).

This is a nightmare.

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Answer 5

Garydp

Level 1

15 points

Dec 1, 2010 7:22 PM in response to jsl2

yeah it is, once you have all contacts back on your iphone you just press backup and it does it.

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Answer 6

jsl2 Author

Level 1

18 points

Dec 20, 2010 11:18 AM in response to Garydp

I'm obviously missing something because I don't see how to use iDrive to back up my contacts (or calendar and tasks, for that matter). I have everthing up to date on mine, and have iDrive installed, and see no option anywhere to back any of that stuff up to iDrive.

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Answer 7

jsl2 Author

Level 1

18 points

Dec 20, 2010 11:32 AM in response to jsl2

oops. I meant apple idisk. Maybe that's the issue. Heaven forbid Apple has an easy wireless backup solution 🙂. I should have known better.

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Answer 8

Aug 27, 2013 5:29 AM in response to jsl2

If you have ever had you iPhone sync with iTunes, then you can get all the contacts that you had the last time you had it synced. Just connect it to iTunes and click on the summary tab. Then choose restore.

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Answer 9

Cathy.P

Level 1

0 points

Aug 27, 2013 5:38 AM in response to jsl2

Hi, several things:

You cannot restore just the contacts, from your iTunes backup. You need to restore everything, if you want to restore anything. To find out how to restore, check this: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1766

It's always recommended to keep a written record of your most important contacts.

Cathy.

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Answer 10

Aug 27, 2013 5:19 AM in response to jsl2

Try to do via iCloud:
settings>iCloud>check to see if your signed in or have contacts on, if you do then turn off contacts, keep on phone, turn back on, merge and your contacts should show up again.

Hopefully this works for all of you like it just worked for me!

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Answer 11

Nov 15, 2013 8:15 AM in response to jsl2

iTunes will backup everything on the iPhone, including contacts.

In iTunes, with the iPhone selected on the left, click the Info tab and make sure contacts syncing is enabled.

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Answer 12

Feb 9, 2014 10:56 PM in response to jsl2

If you have backup before you can restore iPhone contacts from iTunes backup files

Tips: If you have backed up your iPhone through iTunes after saving the contacts on your iPhone before syncing it, then you can use iTunes to restore lost contacts. Please follow next use guide:

Step 1 – Choose an iTunes backup file of your device to scan, and click Scan. The process will extract the content from your phone backup file.

Step 2 – After scan iPhone backup data from iTunes, the screen will display the entire backup content extracted. Find your contacts and click "Recover to recover deleted contacts on iPhone".

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Answer 13

Uplive

Level 1

0 points

May 16, 2014 1:04 AM in response to Babingtow

Babingtow wrote:

If you have backup before you can restore iPhone contacts from iTunes backup files

Tips: If you have backed up your iPhone through iTunes after saving the contacts on your iPhone before syncing it, then you can use iTunes to restore lost contacts. Please follow next use guide:

Step 1 – Choose an iTunes backup file of your device to scan, and click Scan. The process will extract the content from your phone backup file.

Step 2 – After scan iPhone backup data from iTunes, the screen will display the entire backup content extracted. Find your contacts and click "Recover to recover deleted contacts on iPhone".

MAAAAN! You are a life saver! I searched for about an hour trying to find a solution! It totally worked! I had lost almost 100 contacts! A Million Thanks Brother!!!!!

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Answer 14

Mar 24, 2015 12:01 AM in response to jsl2

You can restore iTunes backups to your iPhone at any time. Follow these steps to choose a backup and sync the data to your iPhone.

Connect the iPhone to the computer with a USB cable.

Open iTunes.

If you have a new or erased iPhone, iTunes will prompt you to restore from backup.

Otherwise, Control-click on your iPhone under DEVICES in the left menu.

Select Restore From Backup...

Choose the backup you wish to sync and click the Restore button. Hope this method can help you restore iPhone 4 contacts. You can have a try!

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