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My Iphone was stolen, How do I recover my contacts without the device?

My Iphone was stolen a few weeks ago. I can't afford a new IPhone. How do I recover my data without connceting a device to ITunes? (contacts?)

Thanks!

iPhone 3GS

Posted on May 23, 2012 7:58 PM

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Posted on Jan 7, 2014 8:08 PM

If you have synecd with iCloud ,you can restore the contact by sign in http://icloud.com on a computer ,or if you have synced to iTunes,there were exist a backup files created by iTunes stored on your computer, you can extract the contacs and other data like photo,notes,message,etc by using a 3rd part tool


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14 replies

Oct 4, 2013 2:31 AM in response to liornet

You can recover your contacts without iphone! You can extract your contacts from the iTunes backup when you lost your iPhone. iTunes can automatically back up your iPhone contacts and update it every time when you sync it.

So you really have a big chance to recover contacts from iTunes backup.

You can follow the detailed steps here:

Recover contacts without iPhone

Jan 25, 2014 6:54 PM in response to liornet

When you synchronize your iPhone with iTunes then it automatically creates backup of all data. As you say that you deleted your backup by yourself, then it can not be recovered with any manual method. There are also some reason by which stored data is deleted or corrupted due to some problem like storage disk failure, system problem and many more. So if your data is important for you and you really want to know how to recover contacts from iPhone and create backup of your iPhone easily.


I also use the iPhone Data Recovery for same problem and I successfully solved my problem. I hope this tool also help you to recover your contacts without iPhone.

May 23, 2012 8:03 PM in response to liornet

If you had been syncing your phone to back it up, you can use 3rd party software like iPhone Backup Extractor to try to recover some of your data from your backup. However, contacts are not fully included in the backup (they are only backed up as necessary to maintain call favorites and recent call lists). This article will show what's included in the backup: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946.

Nov 11, 2013 10:24 PM in response to liornet

Ok - here is a crazy fix.


After accidentally deleting contacts on the iphone 4 and then pluging it into itunes while failing to stop an automatic backup - (thereby overwriting itunes contacts with the now blank contacts from the iphone (all gone...) my wife came up with the following fix...


1. Open message app - Pick a message thread which has a name.


2. Scroll up and open contact info. There was the contact.


3. Then select - 'share contact' - choose 'by message' - and send it to yourself.


4. Then you will recieve this message as 'attachment: 1 contact'.


5. Open it and then select 'add to existing contact'. When this opens you can see all of your contacts.



She did this three or four times and played around some more with different messages and suddenly by the fourth time you could see all the contacts through the contact app. This last bit is a little vague but at least by step 5 you can see that all your contacts are still in your phone somewhere, so that you can recover deleted contacts of iPhone successfully. Play around after that and with a little luck someone can add the details of the last step.


Good luck!

Nov 21, 2013 5:25 AM in response to liornet

Had you backed up the phone via iTunes or iCloud? If you don't have any backups, there is nothing to retrieve your contacts from I'm afraid.

If you have a back up, the backup includes pictures in the Camera Roll and you will be able to restore that backup to a replacement iPhone.

Once you do that, grab those contacts (if it works) and then restore contacts from the latest iPhone backup.

Feb 21, 2014 7:39 AM in response to liornet

This thread looks like it's still fairly active with software suggestions, so I'll toss a free suggestion in 🙂


If you have a backup of your old phone on your computer, you should be able to restore your replacement phone from that old backup. It might be a bit old, but old data is likely better than no data. (I've restored from old backups and it's kind-of fun to live time-warp style for a few days!)


You should see restore as an option in iTunes when you look at the Info tab of your new phone.


I also wrote up a blog post about digging through your backups with the free trial of our software, which might help some people too. http://decipher-media.blogspot.com/2014/02/lost-your-iphone-how-to-recover-photo s.html


(Disclaimer: I work for the company that I am linking to -- obviously because I am the author of the blog post 😉-- so I may benefit from my links.)

May 14, 2014 7:12 PM in response to liornet

As I known, there are mainly two methods to Recover iPhone Contacts.

Way 1: Recover Deleted Contacts Directly from iPhone

Step 1 Connect your Device and Choose the Recovery Mode

Step 2 Enter DFU Mode and Scan for Deleted Contacts

Step 3 Preview and Recover lost Contacts

Way 2: Restore Deleted Contacts from iTunes Backup

Step 1 Select the Recovery Mode

Step 2 Scan the Backup File

Step 3 Check and Recover deleted Contacts

Provided that you have a backup in iTunes.

Read More:

How to Recover iPhone data without iTunes Backup

Jul 2, 2014 8:52 PM in response to liornet

You may be able to recover your contacts if you were syncing them with an application on your computer (Windows address book, Mac Address Book, Outlook 2003 or 2007.) If you used one of these the contacts will be in the applications. If you do not have one of these applications on your computer or did not use one of them there is a very slim chance that you will recover contacts from stolen iPhone. There is a possibility that your contacts could be saved in your iPhone Backup in iTunes but its not guaranteed.

My Iphone was stolen, How do I recover my contacts without the device?

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