Q: iPhone 4: lost contacts!  Restore from Backup only works for 30 seconds after restore job, then contacts disappear!

Contacts aren't part of the backup.  Contacts are meant to be synched to your computer (Outlook, Address Book) or a Cloud service so that they can be safe should something happen to your phone.

Not using your phone as intended?  OOPS!  Hard lesson learned.

gdgmacguy wrote:

Contacts aren't part of the backup.

They are. Read here so you know exactly what is included in an iPhone backup:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946

Just to be clear, they are part of the backup and they aren't.

The only purpose of the contact data that's part of the backup is to preserve the recent calls and favorites list.

Contacts* and Contact Favorites (regularly sync contacts to a computer or cloud service such as iCloud to back them up).

 

* Your contacts are part of the backup to preserve recent calls and favorites lists. Back up your contacts to a supported personal information manager (PIM), iCloud, or another cloud-based service to avoid any potential contact data loss.

KiltedTim wrote:

Just to be clear, they are part of the backup and they aren't.

 

Just to be perfectly clear, they are. You can easily verify this yourself, as ANY program such as Touchcopy or Phoneview will extract them. You are mis-reading/interpreting Apple's comments. Apple merely wants users to backup their contacts & not rely on the iPhone backup...good advice.

Wjosten,

You are absolutely correct, they are very much apart of the backup.  I lost all my contacts and did the same thing as you, restored a previous backup.  Upon completion of the restore, all my contacts were there.  Like you, after 30 seconds, mine too erased.  I tried to mess with iCloud with no luck, after re-establishing connection with either wi-fi or cellular, my contacts erased.

I tried several times and was able to finally get my contacts copied over from the restore, here is how but only works if you have the restore available with the contacts still present.

1. Restore from the previous backup (you must watch your phone because you have to be ready for the next step)

2. When your phone restarts, immediately place your phone in "airplane mode" to stop it from connecting to the cloud and wiping away your contacts.  (Your contacts will remain until airplane mode is turned off)

3. Within iTunes, search for and download "My Contacts Backup" which is FREE and does not need to connect to the Internet to work.

4. Within iTunes, under the iPhone, navigate to the App's tab and find "My Contacts Backup" and click the install button to have it installed onto your phone.

5. After installed, run the "My Contacts Backup" and follow the prompts.  Do not change any settings, they are already properly set up.  After it copies all the contacts, it is ready to e-mail out.  Email them to an address you can get on your phone.

6. Turn off airplane mode (this will delete the contacts as said above but we have a backup.)

7. Open the e-mail and click on the attachment.  Follow the short steps and all your contacts will re-populate.

If you are like me, this fix also took care of my iMac and iPad contacts.  I have all 400 contacts back.  I hope this helps if you haven't found a fix or anyone that finds this page in the future.  While trying to fix this, I stumbled across software that was over $100.00 to fix this problem.  This is the free way

FYI - I had the iPhone 5 running 6.0.2

Good luck,

Reed

Thank you Reed - while it took some doing to get My contacts installed cause it kept trying to download everything else, eventually it worked and my contacts are restored.  I really appreciate your post!

Would you please let me know how did you get "My Contacts Backups" installed? When I click the Install button (Step 4) to have it installed onto my phone, it is writen "will install" and nothing happens! Thank you.

Thank you Reed. It worked! I do appreciate your post.

debf012 and Gatti2013,

I am very glad it worked for you, I know how irritating it was to lose all my contacts and frantically try to find a solution. 

Reed

Thanks for the advice, the moral of the tale is that Apple don't give a **** about their customers otherwise restoring the 'contacts only' would be a simple operation not needing third party solutions. I'm trying to restore said contacts but don't want to restore all the other stuff. Big FAIL Apple, pull your finger out and look after your customers. Thanks for all the usefull info here, no thanks to Apple.

No. The "Big FAIL" is users who don't bother to use the phone as intended. If you would have been syncing your contacts to something in the first place, it wouldn't be a problem.

I've been syncing my phone every week to the iMac, but there is no option to restore contacts only to the phone. So what you on about!!!!!

Have you bothered reading this thread at all?

Have you bothered reading my post?