Yahoo contacts not syncing with iphone 5 iOS 6.0.1

Exact same problem here. Just got a new iPhone5 with iOS 6.0.1. Mail is syncing with Yahoo, but not contacts. I spent an hour with Apple support tonight. They had no great ideas, except to call Yahoo support.

I also just noticed our other iPhone5 iOS 6.0.1 (which used to sync just fine) did not sync a change I made this morning.

I suspect something is wrong with Yahoo! contact syncing in the past few days.

I called Yahoo! support at 855-272-4029. They told me they don't support the iPhone5. Nice.

I called Apple, and they seem kind of aware of this issue. They said it may be an anti-spam security feature that Yahoo! is now using, and is preventing the contact information from coming through. It kind of sounded like they are taking the issue up with Yahoo!, but it was not definitive.

FWIW, both our iPhone5's are not syncing yahoo contacts, not the new one for my wife, nor mine that used to work a few weeks ago - - both use different Yahoo! accounts and different Apple ID's, so I am fairly certain the problem does not lie with some setting I messed up.

Apple's workaround was to install the Yahoo! mail app. It doesn't transfer email or phone info to the iPhone. But it allows you to send emails to contacts and view phone numbers (but not call them) through the app.

You have to open the Yahoo! mail app everytime you want to use the email addresses, or see (not use) the phone numbers from Yahoo! contacts. Not much of a workaround. But better than nothing.

I was just able to sync my Yahoo! Contacts both ways between my online Yahoo! Mail Contacts and my iPhone 4S running iOS 6.0.1. I found the answer in Yahoo! Mail Help at

http://help.yahoo.com/kb/index?locale=en_US&page=content&y=PROD_MAIL_ML&id=SLN49 22&impressions=true

Relevant Parts:

To sync your Yahoo! Calendar and Yahoo! Contacts with your iOS device (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad):

While still in the "Mail, Contacts, Calendars" settings section, set the "Fetch New Data" option to: every 15 minutes (or whatever time increment you desire).

- You may leave the "Push" setting on or turn it off as it is not relevant to Yahoo! services.

Important: Go to the "Contacts" section at the bottom of the "Mail, Contacts, Calendars" section and verify that the "Default Account" account setting is set to Yahoo!.

- This will ensure proper syncing between your iOS device's Contacts and Yahoo! Contacts.

I hope this works for you. Good Luck!

It is a Yahoo issue. I've exchanged hours of Help Chat with Yahoo, then on to email support, and they have told me they know the issue and it was "supposed" to be fixed within 24hrs. Now I'm told 5-7 days.

btw, on the iPhone 5 there is no "Default Account" selection for contacts. Apple verified this with me.

Currently my Yahoo email and calendar work perfectly, Contacts sync died a week or two ago? Not sure on exact date.

Don't waste your time with online fixes, Yahoo help files, etc. It's a known issuea and we are all being held hostage by Yahoo.

But, I bring good news! Go to your app store and download Google Maps! Yes, it's there, keep looking!

Merry Christmas!

Update. Got tired of waiting for Yahoo so I exported my Yahoo contacts, imported to Google Contacts (csv), then added the Google account on on the iPhone as a CardDAV service. Google that if you need directions, pretty simple.

Low and behold, there appeared a "Default Contacts" option after doing this, so the Apple Care rep was WRONG on that one.

All working great now, and someday, when Yahoo figures it out, I can have both options.

I have the same issue but with an iphone 4S running IOS 5. I was waiting for the Google maps app to be available before upgrading to IOS 6. Too my horror, my Yahoo contacts are not syncing even with the new IOS. Half of my address book is not there.

I downloaded the Yahoo mail app. It has significant limitations. It doesn not allow you to edit all contacts from the app, only ones that originated from your phone or icloud. It also does not allow you to call a person from the app either. Terribly inconvenient, but at least I can see all my contacts now.

hopefully this will get addressed by Yahoo soon.

I tried Frontmans13's suggestion and it worked like a charm. Easy and fast to set up and implement.

Thank you and happy holidays.

Frontman13, you are a genius! Nice workaround in the meantime. I set up a Gmail account, told it to just import my Yahoo contacts into it, and then set it up as a CardDAV account for the iPhone, and it quickly synced. Problem is now if I keep adding info to the iPhone, it'll sync across to Gmail contacts, but not Yahoo, and vice versa, if I make changes to Yahoo contacts, they'll stay there.

At some point, I hope Yahoo will fix things soon. Then I guess I'll try to import back into Yahoo all my Gmail contacts, and hopefully Yahoo will know which are already there, and only import the new ones? I know there's a duplicate entry feature, but if importing 500 contacts, I hope it's smart enough to know almost all already exist in Yahoo, and not to import them in the first place, rather than show me like 490 duplicates...

Is there a way also you think one can get notified by Yahoo when they've fixed things? Does opening a ticket do it?

I am reading all of these after several hours of frustration with this issue! I did the same thing as Frontman13 and all of my contacts are there. I actually did all of this when I first got my iphone 4S last year because I had been using an Android device that requires Google. The problem is that I hate google mail and much prefer yahoo email, so I would like for everything to be in yahoo (mail, contacts, etc.). At the time, I imported all of my google contacts back into yahoo (because with Android I was having to use both). It was sort of a disaster - importing from google to yahoo doesn't work nearly as well as from yahoo to google, so beware! I eventually got it all like I like it, but it took a while! I loved having everything in Yahoo because that way any updates were always there and I didn't have to remember to update both every time I added, deleted, or changed a contact. Now I guess I am back to having two different contact lists. Hopefully Yahoo will correct this soon (don't think it is an Apple problem unless they are just giving yahoo a hard time!). If anyone notices a fix, please post here!