My wife bought an iPad Air and synced contact from our PC (Outlook), now all our contacts in Outlook have gone and we have to go to iCloud to get them, and even then they are a bit jumbled. How do I get my data back onto my PC?

You perhaps want to install icloud control panel on your Windows and that will start syncing your Outlook with icloud and ipad without even connecting those. You can get the latest control panel here.

http://support.apple.com/kb/dl1455

Before download - read what it does.

BertNodules wrote:

I already have iCloud Control Panel to try to cure this total disaster but have just read on the troubleshooting pages that iCloud will grab all contacts in Outlook and then clear them off of Outlook by moving them into Deleted Items folder.

Can you provide me with source of that info so we can figure out what you have done to yourself? And hopefully undo....

FYI, this is normal, and is documented under the Microsoft Outlook section of this article: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3998 (read under Note at the bottom). It's just iCloud moving the contacts to the iCloud server and deleting the local copy. If the OP wants to keep a copy locally he/she can select them from the iCloud account, then control drag and drop them to the local My Contacts account within Outlook. The same can be done with calendars by selecting the iCloud calendar within Outlook, switching to list view, selecting all the events, the contol dragging and droping them to the local My Calendars calendar.

Rander's I as always thank you for help. I do understand and am familiar with article, but deleting local copy is not meant to create situation where Bert would not see that information in outlook. Yes it will show up under icloud contacts, but will be just as visible as before. And if signed out he will see it back stored locally. To me it was obvious that somewhere there was step that OP would point me to that created disappearance of contacts. Now I am actually happy that you have interfered, so I can leave it in your more then capable hands, cause I just had lunch and feel sleepy, and I am completely confident that you are way way better then me to get Bert out of that mess if that is possible.

I agree that it should not prevent the OP from still seeing the contacts in Outlook. I'll see what I can do to help.

BertNodules wrote:

My wife bought an iPad Air and synced contact from our PC (Outlook), now all our contacts in Outlook have gone and we have to go to iCloud to get them, and even then they are a bit jumbled. How do I get my data back onto my PC?

Are you saying you cannot see your iCloud contacts within Outlook on your PC, even though they appear on icloud.com?

If so, are you sure you are selecting the contacts listed under "iCloud" and not the contacts listed under "My Contacts" on the left sidebar of Outlook?

If you can see the iCloud contacts in Outlook, you can copy them back to your PC by selecting all the contacts (click one, then press Control-A), then drag and drop the selected contacts to Contacts under My Contacts on the left sidebar of Outlook.

If you want to copy your calendar back to Outlook, select your iCloud calendar on the left sidebar of Outlook, switch to the list view (select View from the ribbon, then click Change View>List), select your events (click on a single event, then press Control-A), then control drag and drop them to Calendar under My Calendars on the left sidebar.

Then you can sign out of iCloud on the iCloud control panel and your local copies will still be there. If you want to add your iCloud email account back to iCloud, you can do this with these settings: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4864.