How can I access my contacts from an iPhone backup without my iPhone?

This is about 5 years too late for you, but this is the 2nd time I've had to find this answer, so in case anyone else needs it. These steps were tested on Windows 7, if you are on some other platform most of the info will still be useful, but you will need different utilities to actually extract the data and read the file.

First

Get a program called iPhone Backup Browser (it's a google code project from waaaay back).

There are a LOT of fake or possibly fake products with this name. Here are the google code and github links I used:

• Binary: https://code.google.com/archive/p/iphone-backup-browser/downloads
• Source Code: https://github.com/uugankhuu/iphone-backup-browser

Then

1. Virus check everything (because you shouldn't trust anyone on the Internet)
2. Run iPhoneBackupBrowser.exe
3. Select your backup
   Note: Any backups in the default location (C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup) will be found automatically
   There's a browse button if you need to look elsewhere
4. Select the Advanced tab
5. Open the tree to: Library -> AddressBook
6. Select AddressBook.sqlitedb
7. Enter a file save location at the bottom of the dialog
8. Click "extract selected files"
9. Boom, it's there in your location.
10. This is an sql so you'll need an sqlite browser. If you don't have one, try SqlLiteBrowser at http://sqlitebrowser.org/
    It has a GitHub repository if you want to build from source: GitHub - sqlitebrowser/sqlitebrowser: Official home of the DB Browser for SQLite (DB4S) project. Previously known as "SQ…
11. Run anti-virus again. 🙂
12. Install sqlitebrowser (aka db.browser)
13. Run sqlitebrowser
14. Rename the file you extracted from AddressBook.sqlitedb to AddressBook.sqlite (it can't find .sqlitedb extension)
15. Click Open Database and select your extracted file
16. I'm not a DBA, but a quick google search gave me the query we need from laacz on GitHub(with slight modification to the email field). Thanks Iaacz!

    Click thje "Execute SQL" tab and paste the following (including the last semicolon) into the blank area within the "SQL 1" tab

select ABPerson.ROWID

, ABPerson.first

, ABPerson.last

, ABPerson.Organization as organization

, ABPerson.Department as department

, ABPerson.Birthday as birthday

, ABPerson.JobTitle as jobtitle

, (select value from ABMultiValue where property = 3 and record_id = ABPerson.ROWID and label = (select ROWID from ABMultiValueLabel where value = '_$!<Work>!$_')) as phone_work

, (select value from ABMultiValue where property = 3 and record_id = ABPerson.ROWID and label = (select ROWID from ABMultiValueLabel where value = '_$!<Mobile>!$_')) as phone_mobile

, (select value from ABMultiValue where property = 3 and record_id = ABPerson.ROWID and label = (select ROWID from ABMultiValueLabel where value = '_$!<Home>!$_')) as phone_home

, (select value from ABMultiValue where property = 4 and record_id = ABPerson.ROWID) as email

, (select value from ABMultiValueEntry where parent_id in (select ROWID from ABMultiValue where record_id = ABPerson.ROWID) and key = (select ROWID from ABMultiValueEntryKey where lower(value) = 'street')) as address

, (select value from ABMultiValueEntry where parent_id in (select ROWID from ABMultiValue where record_id = ABPerson.ROWID) and key = (select ROWID from ABMultiValueEntryKey where lower(value) = 'city')) as city

from ABPerson

order by ABPerson.ROWID

;

Hopefully you should have your contacts back now in what's known as CSV format.

This readable by spreadsheet programs like Excel, but you can open it up in any text reader and it should be readable.

Good luck!

This is a monumentally late response but I found this post while trying to find a solution to the OP's question. And the replies led me to the appropriate solution. I have an iPhone but also a Mac Mini and I backup my iPhone to the Mac Mini through iTunes. Turns out that there's a Contacts app in OSX and, unbeknownst to me, when I was backing up my iPhone via iTunes the contacts were also being backed-up and were accessible directly from OSX.

I believe that the post title isn't exactly fair. While I have a Mac Mini, iPad, iPhone 8 and also recently purchased an Apple TV, I'm not an Apple "fan boy." I just appreciate technology which works well, even if it's not always completely intuitive. It's an ecosystem which mostly works, although you'll never see me relying on iCloud...

you can't. Contacts are not part of the backup. Contacts are meant to be synched with a cloud service, or with an app on your computer like Outlook or Address Book. Had you been using your phone as recommended, you would have easy access to your contacts without your phone.

What do you mean use my phone as recommended?

Contacts are meant to be synced with a contacts app on your computer. Had you been doing that, there'd be no issue here.

The Contacts aren't inside the backup itself. iTunes syncs the Contacts info from Address Book, Microsoft Outlook, or whatever program you use.

What do you use to manage or store Contact info on your computer? Have you looked there?

"I don't use any application on my computer. "

Why would you do this?

The iphone is designed to be synced with your computer.

It is possible to set up another iPhone (N) using the backup of

your old iPhone (O). Doing so will replace what is currently on the

new iPhone (N). You could then use the information on the new

iPhone (N) to sync with Outlook/Contacts to get a copy of the

information on your computer. You could then restore the new

iPhone (N) to the backup you made before putting the old backup

of your old iPhone (O) onto the new iPhone (N). Hopefully this makes

some sense to you. If not, ask and someone will try to explain it better.

iPhones do not save any info to the SIM card; you will have to decide

whether that is a dealbreaker.

You can plug a new phone in and restore the backup from your computer. As has already been stated, however, contacts are NOT part of the backup. If they were restored when you restored your phone previously, they either had to come from an address book on your computer or a cloud service you were syncing to (Exchange, Yahoo, gmail, etc.).

Most likely, you set up the contact sync when you first got your phone and never thought about it again. Just because you don't actually open and use the address book on your computer doesn't mean it isn't there.

On Windows, look in Windows Address book or Outlook. If you had an Exchange account, Yahoo account, or G-Mail account (set up as Exchange), look at the contacts on the server.

Even if you could save contacts to the SIM, you would only get a small fraction of the information that can be entered for each contact.

This answer is confusing since in the past I've purchased a new phone, restored it with iTunes from a previous phone backup and had all my contacts return. I do not sync with outlook, google or yahoo (my iTunes settings are turned off). It is not unusual that the original poster uses only iTunes - all of the iPhone users I know do this. They have no need for a program to download all their mail and contacts since it's all accessible through gmail or yahoo. Having to launch Outlook and configure settings is just adding an extra step.

Are you truly certain that iTunes keeps no record of the contacts? Because there are several programs that claim to have the ability to extract this data from an old backup file. Are these scams? (I'm trying to recover my contacts from an iOS 5 backup since my iPhone 4 was stolen and I'm stuck with an iPhone 3G that can't run iOS 5).

yes it does. It would be nonsense to backup your music but not your contacts.

I got my iphone4 stolen and i recovered my contacts in an excel spreadsheet. It's not ideal but it's better than nothing. see link below

http://www.funkykit.com/how-to/7898-how-to-extract-your-contacts-from-iphone-or- itunes-backup.html

Keeping a backup of iPhone contacts and other data via iTunes is not very effective as the backups made by iTunes are random, and in order to restore, one needs to wipe their iPhone of all songs.

I used to have a similar problem with an iPhone backup created by iTunes which managed to restore only half of my previous iPhone contacts.

I think managing iPhone contacts with the iCloud and not backing them up with iTunes is more effective in case you need to restore later.

You are right. I would rely on iCloud or thrid party apps such as copytrans Contacts to keep a backup of my iPhone contacts and restore at any time should I need to.
<Link Edited by Host>