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How do I sync facebook friends to my contacts using the IPhone 5?

How do I sync my facebook friends to my IPhone 5 contacts?

iPhone 5, iOS 6

Posted on Sep 22, 2012 1:57 AM

Reply
75 replies

Oct 21, 2013 4:29 PM in response to x Hazard

This was intentional on Facebook's part, in an attempt to reduce the clutter in your contact list, they now try to guess which contacts are worth syncing, and which aren't. Unfortunately, they get it wrong a lot. There are a number of services that can fix this. I'll list two here, but a search on the app store for "facebook contact sync" yields a number of results. These two just seem to be the best.

1. http://www.sync.me - will add people's information from Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+. I use this, it's dead simple, and it works great for me.

2. Facedown - will download just get your contacts' photos from Facebook. Link: https://itunes.apple.com/pl/app/facedown/id391302938?mt=8

Oct 21, 2013 5:10 PM in response to Dolby1974

Not syncing all your facebook friends was intentional on Facebook's part, in an attempt to reduce the clutter in your contact list, they now try to guess which contacts are worth syncing, and which aren't. Unfortunately, they get it wrong a lot. There are a number of services that can fix this. I'll list two here, but a search on the app store for "facebook contact sync" yields a number of results. These two just seem to be the best.

1. http://www.sync.me - will add people's information from Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+. I use this, it's dead simple, and it works great for me.

2. Facedown - will download just get your contacts' photos from Facebook. Link:https://itunes.apple.com/pl/app/facedown/id391302938?mt=8

Jun 7, 2013 3:13 AM in response to x Hazard

Even at first I suspected the buggy Facebook but after hours of googling I found something which Facebook and Apple should come forward and get this information to the Public.


http://9to5mac.com/2013/06/06/facebook-aims-to-declutter-the-ios-contacts-app-by -no-longer-syncing-friends-without-useful-contact-info/?utm_source=feedburner&u t m_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+9To5Mac-MacAllDay+%289+to+5+Mac+-+Apple+Inte l ligence%29.


  1. Guys use this thread to report this to Apple that how lazy they are in notifying there customers.
  2. There is a workaround for this if ppl want to get notified of their facebook contacts birthday's on iOS 6.
  3. Signin to Outlook Mail at Outlook.com
  4. Then click on the connect services and connect your Outlook ID to Facebook and in a while outlook will fetch all the details of the Facebook freinds and add them to Outlook regardless what privacy settings they have kept BUT SHOULD BE YOUR FRIEND TO FETCH DETAILS.
  5. Then go to calendar and add a Birthday calendar, here you go , you can change settings of notifications on the calendar page of Outlook.
  6. Then add the outlook mail ID to the iphone and sync calendars and you will be notified of the events.



Let me know if I can be of any help to anyone in setting this workaround.

Sep 23, 2012 9:48 AM in response to x Hazard

In IOS 6, there is the ability to link to a Facebook account (in Settings) and then update Contacts on the iPhone with your Facebook connections. Tighter integration with Facebook is one of the new features of IOS 6. That includes whatever information those connections have shared with you - phone nubmers, email addresses, home addresses, birthdays, etc.

Jun 2, 2013 9:00 PM in response to x Hazard

This is a problem with all Apple devices (I've seen a person complaining about their Macbook contacts not updating) and Facebook. Send in a technical support request because I was bascially told by a tech support person that no matter how many times there are posts on the forums complaining about this issue until the technical support people actually start seeing multiple customers complaining in their system they will not attempt to find a fix.

Jun 3, 2013 5:46 PM in response to x Hazard

Same Here. I have 123 friends on facebook but only 40 contacts now from facebook. If I try to update my contacts through the facebook settings, it always comes back with 0 contacts updated. I'm not able to update any contacts. Also a lot of images of my contacts are gone and won't update. Things were working fine yesterday. Just noticed this today. Any word on a fix?


I've reinstalled facebook app a few times, deleted my account, re-added the account. Nothing worked. Need a fix for this.


How can I contact support so they are aware of this issue? I can't seem to find it. I got through to some support stuff but then I had to pay $59.99 to send it? o.o

Isn't there a free ticket system or something?

Jun 3, 2013 6:35 PM in response to lwgnlSeVeN

Request that they call you directly and pick one of the various reasons that may be an exception for pay. That's how I got through to support for free.


As of yesterday, my iPhone's total amount of contacts has been dropping to where it's just those in iCloud.


I have a call scheduled for later today with a senior technical advisor who is one of the many support people I spoke with who also noticed this strange situation.


As of right now it does not appear to have anything to do with any applications or settings in the iPhone itself, because it's unlikely that people changed them all on May 31, when all of this started. It may be an issue over at Facebook but there's very little that can be done concerning this if that's what's wrong.


Just send in error reports to Apple while you can. The more customers reporting the issue the faster they can solve it.

Jun 3, 2013 7:01 PM in response to x Hazard

When you get in contact with support over the phone, see if you can direct them to this topic so they can see the others with the same results. I spent 3 hours tonight researching how to properly update my contacts before finding this topic. At this point in time I'm just relieved that its not just me with the problem. I'm glad I found this topic here.

Jun 3, 2013 11:13 PM in response to x Hazard

Okay. I just got off the phone with the senior technical advisor and he and his associates found the issue.


Facebook must have recently changed how its privacy settings affect how information is sent. If someone has any of their contact information set to "Don't Show on Timeline" or "Only Me", none of the information is sent to the iPhone. I just tested it with a friend who was not appearing in my contact list and after changing his "Only Me" and "Don't Show on Timeline" settings he showed up in my contact list, again. Picture, birthday, email, phone number, etc.


So the next step is to notify Facebook about the error and hope that we can escalate this to be fixed prior to May 31 settings.

Jun 3, 2013 11:47 PM in response to wfchong

Because currently all my friend list in Facebook is showing out their birthday, contacts, address and etc. by right their privacy is not set to only me. By right it shouldn't be a problem and can be sync into iPhone. I guess Facebook side privacy setting (doesn't care is public or only me) still having problem to send to iPhone?

How do I sync facebook friends to my contacts using the IPhone 5?

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