Recover Lost Contacts

Question

Level 1

1 points

Recover Lost Contacts

Earlier this week I decided to switch the iCloud account on our MacBook Pro from mine to my wife's account. When doing so I chose the option to leave my old contacts on the computer and merge her new ones in. I didn't realize the consequences at the time. She wound up getting all of my contacts mixed in with hers on her iPhone during the next iCloud sync.

I then deleted all contacts from Address Book except for those belonging to "groups" we had setup. That didn't quite do the trick - I over-purged.

Since then I have restored her iPhone from an iCloud backup dating back to before the purge and the contacts did not re-apper.

I have also tried restoring contacts from Time Machine, however, there does not seem to be an address book file anywhere. BTW, I'm on Mavericks.

Does anyone have a recommendation for how to restore the lost contacts either through iCloud or Time Machine?

Posted on Dec 12, 2013 6:29 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Dec 12, 2013 6:42 PM in response to scott03atm

If you think your back up did contain your lost contacts, try this...

To restore from a back up made through iTunes, follow these instructions.

To restore from a back up made through iCloud, try the following:

The difficulty in restoring iCloud data from a back up is that the back up is older than the current version on iCloud and anything that is restored gets removed again when an iCloud sync occurs.

Ensure the device is connected to your local network.
Start the restore from iCloud back up.
Allow the devices settings to restore (watch for the confirmation of completion).
As the apps begin to restore pull the connection to your router WAN port (the one that goes to the telephone point).
Wait for the time out confirmation.
Navigate to settings > iCloud and turn off contact syncing (keep contacts when prompted).
Reconnect the router to the internet and let the restore process complete.
Delete any iCloud contacts from iCloud.comon a computer.
Navigate to settings > iCloud and turn on contact syncing (merge contacts when prompted).

May I suggest that you carry out a back up to iTunes before you try anything, that way should things become even worse, you can at least restore back to where you are now.

Reply

Answer 2

scott03atm Author

Level 1

1 points

Dec 12, 2013 8:32 PM in response to Winston Churchill

I got it solved over on this thread: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#inbox/142e9e639f473664

Reply

Answer 3

Ribrow

Level 1

0 points

Apr 9, 2014 3:56 AM in response to scott03atm

There are 7 ways to recover iPhone contacts:

Restoring with iTunes if the backups are up-to-date; (FREE)
Restoring from iCloud backup if the backups are the latest; (FREE)
Recovering using a third party iPhone data recovery program;
Extracting from iCloud backup using an iCloud backup extractor;
Extracting from iTunes backup;
Copying from old phone’s SIM card; (FREE)
Syncing with other cloud services if backed up with them, such as Google contacts. (FREE)

Reply

Answer 4

pennrig

Level 1

0 points

Oct 24, 2014 1:50 AM in response to scott03atm

Hi, there

Your experience really sounds sad.

It is true that we can restore deleted iPhone contacts with iPhone Data Recovery.

We can retrieve lost contacts directly from your iPhone.

And here are:

Step 1 Connect your iPhone to Computer and Choose your Device

Step 2 Select the Recovery Mode

Step 3 Check and Recover Lost Contacts

Now deleting or losing a contact doesn't mean it is gone forever.

But I suggest you to have a backup in iTunes or iClound.

In other way, you can have a try to restore contacts from iCloud, and you can get more information here.

Reply