How to recover lost contacts (i just back up my iphone 5)

Contacts are designed to be synced to a supported application on the computer or a cloud service. If the device has been used as designed, simply sync them back.

What are the contacts synced with? A supported application on the computer? iCloud? Gmail? An Exchange server?

if they are showing in the device as a ghost contact, your best bet would be to restore from the backup:

iCloud and iTunes can back up most data on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Backed-up information includes purchased music, TV shows, apps, and books^*; photos and video in the Camera Roll; device settings (for example, Phone Favorites, Wallpaper, and Mail, Contacts, Calendar accounts); app data; Home screen and app organization; Messages (iMessage, SMS, and MMS), ringtones, and more. Media files synced from your computer aren’t backed up, but can be restored by syncing with iTunes.

* Backup of purchased music is not available in all countries. Backup of purchased TV shows occurs only in the United States. Previous purchases may not be restored if they are no longer in the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBookstore.

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iCloud

How to back up

iCloud automatically backs up the most important data on your device using iOS 5 or later. After you have enabled Backup on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch in Settings > iCloud > Backup & Storage, it will run on a daily basis as long as your device is:

• Connected to the Internet over Wi-Fi
• Connected to a power source
• Screen locked

You can also back up manually whenever your device is connected to the Internet over Wi-Fi by choosing Back Up Now from Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup.To learn more about what is backed up, see the iCloud: Backup and Restore Overview article.

How to restore from a backup

When you go through Setup Assistant on a new device using iOS 5 or later, choose "Restore from iCloud Backup" and enter your iCloud account and password. You will see the three most recent backups for each of the devices on which you enabled Backup. Choose from which backup to restore.If the home screen icons appear on your device and you wish to restore from an iCloud backup, erase your device (by going to Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings). When prompted to set up as new or to restore from previous backup, select Restore from iCloud Backup. Enter your AppleID and password when prompted.After your device restarts, your settings and accounts are restored and Backup starts downloading your purchased music, TV shows, apps, books, Camera Roll, and other content^*. For best battery performance, leave your device connected to a power source until the restore is complete. You may be prompted to enter the passwords for all accounts enabled on your device.A progress bar will appear underneath the apps that are being downloaded. To prioritize the restore of a specific app, tap its icon. Restore will attempt to download the same version of the app that you had installed previously. If that version is no longer available, the latest version of the app will be restored.To check if the restore is complete, go to Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup.

iTunes

How to back up

iTunes can create backups of your iOS device when you:

• Sync with iTunes (disabled if you have iCloud backup turned on)
• Right-click (or Control-click) the iOS device in iTunes under Devices and choose Back Up

Use these steps to manually back up your iOS device using iTunes:

1. Connect your iOS device to a computer with the latest version of iTunes installed.
2. Click the File menu and select Devices > Back up.

Or

1. Connect your iOS device to a computer with the latest version of iTunes installed.
2. Open the iOS device's Summary tab. There are two ways to access this:
   
   • Click the device button in the upper right corner. (If viewing the iTunes Store, click the Library button in the upper right corner. The device button will then be visible.)
   • From any view in iTunes, click the View menu and select Show Sidebar. Select your iOS device in iTunes under Devices.
3. Click the Back Up Now button.
   

To verify that the backup finished successfully, open iTunes Preferences and select the Devices tab. The name of the device will appear along with the date and time the backup was created.

If using iTunes 10.7 or earlier:

Right-click (or Control-click) the device and select Back Up.

How to restore from a backup

To restore information from a backup, use one of the following methods after connecting your iOS device to the computer with which you normally sync:

Click the File menu and select Devices > Restore from Back up.

Or

• Open the iOS device's Summary tab. There are two ways to access this:
  
  • Click the device button in the upper right corner. (If viewing the iTunes Store, click the Library button in the upper right corner. The device button will then be visible.)
  • From any view in iTunes, click the View menu and select Show Sidebar. Select your iOS device in iTunes under Devices.
• Click the Restore Backup button.
  

If using iTunes 10.7 or earlier:

Right-click (or Control-click) the device and choose Restore from Backup

Additional Information

Find information on optimizing your iOS backup experience.

iOS device backups preserve your settings, the Camera Roll (or Saved Pictures), and other important data. Learn more about what is stored in a backup.

iTunes and iOS do not support installing backups of newer versions of iOS onto devices using earlier versions of iOS.

iTunes will not back up automatically if you are using iCloud.

Have a new iOS device and need to move your previous backup onto it? Follow the steps in How to transfer your backup from one iOS device to a new device.

Find information on using iTunes to restore.

The only other way would be if your contacts are in iCloud. If so, you can forfeit everything else and restore as new and then turn on iCloud contacts. Check to see if you have a recent iCloud backup settings>iCloud>storage and backup>manage backup. If there's a recent backup, that would have everything in it. If not, go to iCloud.com on a computer (can't use iOS device) and log in and see if your contacts are in there. If so, restore as new and set up and then turn contacts on in settings>iCloud>contacts- on. To use a full iCloud backup follow HT1414 (search that in the search bar at support.apple.com

Good luck to you bud! I hope there's something there to pull back!

Actually, you can directly scan and recover contacts from iPhone 5/4S/4/3GS

Step 1: Connect your iPhone to the computer

If you didn't lose your iPhone, you can also use this way to recover your contacts. Connect your iPhone and run the iPhone Recovery program on your computer.

Step 2: Enter the device's scanning mode and scan it

iPhone 5/4S users don't need to do this step. You only need to click "Start Scan" to directly scan your iPhone for deleted contacts on it.

For iPhone 4/3GS users, you need to click the "Download" button on the main window to download a plug-in for your device. Then follow the steps below to enter the device's scanning mode to scan it:

1) Hold your device and click the "Start" button.

2) Pressing the "Power" and "Home" buttons at the same time for exact 10 seconds.

3) Then release the "Power" button, but keep holding "Home" for another 15 seconds until you get the message of successfully entering.

Whatever the device you use, the program will automatically begin scanning your iPhone for lost contacts after you doing the steps accordingly.

Step 3: Preview and recover iPhone contacts

When the scan is finished, you can preview all found data before recovery. Choose "Contacts" to preview, mark it and click "Recover", you can save all the contents on your computer with one click.

<Link Edited By Host>

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.

If you don't synced, you can directly scan and recover deleted contacts from your iPhone.

Solution 1: Scan and extract iTunes backup to recover iPhone contacts (without iPhone)

Step 1: Scan the backup file

Step 2: Recover your iPhone contacts

Solution 2: Directly scan and recover contacts from iPhone 5/4S/4/3GS

Step 1: Connect your iPhone to the computer

Step 2: Enter the device's scanning mode and scan it

1) Hold your device and click the "Start" button.

2) Pressing the "Power" and "Home" buttons at the same time for exact 10 seconds.

3) Then release the "Power" button, but keep holding "Home" for another 15 seconds until you get

Step 3: Preview and recover iPhone contacts

<Link Edited By Host>

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Hi Aaron041289,

I have the exact same problem you stated, could you advice what exacly the computer technician did?

Is this in the States?

Thanks in Advance,

Z

I was having this same problem regarding ghost contacts and it's pretty easy if you have a mac.

My ghost contacts were still in my contacts application on my macbook but would not show up on my iphone unless I created a message. From the macbook app I exported a vcard (File>Export>Export vCard) and saved it. Then I went to icloud.com and imported that same vCard. All my ghost contacts were restored to my phone instantly. If you can do something with your windows computer it's a similar process.

Let me know if this helps anyone.

Maybe this will help people that stumble across this thread.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3911479?start=30&tstart=0