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iPhone restore

Hi there,


My wife was selling an old iPhone and done a complete factory reset, only to discover that it deleted a whole pile of contacts and all her calenders. From what we can see, there doesn't seem to be a way to restore just the calendar and contacts from her backups.


It says there was an iCloud backup from yesterday, but all I can find for a restore is a full reset of the phone, and then restore from iCloud backup...


a) is this true, is there no other way,

b) If it is true, what other stuff will be missing then once she restores? Will she loose where she moved icons? Will there be other things missing?


Thanks in advance.

iPhone 5s, iOS 8.2

Posted on May 3, 2015 7:30 AM

Reply
8 replies

May 3, 2015 7:45 AM in response to ovbg

First of all, an iCloud backup does not include things that are already stored in your iCloud account as part of your synchronized data, like contacts and calendars. So restoring from a backup will never restore contacts as they are not IN the backup file. See About backups in iCloud and iTunes - Apple Support


IF she had been synchronizing her contacts and calendars via her iCloud account (they are both separate settings under your iCloud account settings to enable/disable synch'ing to iCloud) then she can restore the device from the backup, setup her iCloud account and simple re-enable the contacts and calendars to synchronize her phone with what is stored in her iCloud account.


Note that since she has already done a reset (I assume you mean she selected "erase all content and settings" in her iPhone's "general > reset" settings panel) then her only options are to restore from backup and re-sync her other iCloud content. If she had previously enabled the contacts and calendar settings under her iCloud account, then when she sets up any new Apple device with that same iCloud account, she can synchronize it with that content.


If she just wants the contacts and calendar on a device, then set it up with the same iCloud account, DO NOT restore from backup, and under the iCloud account settings, simple re-enable contacts and calendar sliders to synchronize just that data.


If she never enabled contacts and calendar synchronization on her iPhone, and did not save that data to her computer, then it is gone for good now.

May 3, 2015 7:52 AM in response to Michael Black

Hi Michael, thanks for your reply.


Just to clarify things, my Wife had two iPhones, an old one that was no longer in use (4s) and a new one that she uses now (6) and this is what happened.


1) iPhone 4s was decommissioned, so she done a full factory reset on that iPhone so she can sell it. This erased all her contacts and calendars.


2) When she looked into her iPhone 6, she noticed that all her contacts and calendars were missing here as well now. So, because of this, I assume that she was using iCloud syncing and this is why all that data has disappeared from her current iPhone 6.


She hasn't reset anything on the iPhone 6.


Your second-to-last paragraph looks like the solution, but I am not sure I really understand it.

"If she just wants the contacts and calendar on a device, then set it up with the same iCloud account, DO NOT restore from backup, and under the iCloud account settings, simple re-enable contacts and calendar sliders to synchronize just that data. "


She has this iPhone 6 already set up with iCloud (the same as the older decommissioned iPhone 4s) and the calendar and contacts are already set to green. When we looked inside iCloud on a computer, the contacts and calendar were still as empty as her phone. So it seems to be deleted there as well now.

May 3, 2015 8:31 AM in response to ovbg

ovbg wrote:


Hi Michael, thanks for your reply.


Just to clarify things, my Wife had two iPhones, an old one that was no longer in use (4s) and a new one that she uses now (6) and this is what happened.


1) iPhone 4s was decommissioned, so she done a full factory reset on that iPhone so she can sell it. This erased all her contacts and calendars.


2) When she looked into her iPhone 6, she noticed that all her contacts and calendars were missing here as well now. So, because of this, I assume that she was using iCloud syncing and this is why all that data has disappeared from her current iPhone 6.


She hasn't reset anything on the iPhone 6.

It appears that she erased the Contacts from her old phone before signing out of her iCloud account on the old phone. If this is what she did then the Contacts would also be erase in iCloud and on her iPhone 6 and they are probably not recoverable unless she has a specific Contact backup somewhere.


The correct steps to follow are:

1. Backup the device.

2. Sign out of iCloud.

3. Erase all Content and Settings.


What to do before selling or giving away your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

May 3, 2015 9:59 AM in response to Ralph9430

Thanks for the info Ralph.


It does appear that this is what she done. I now have the rather frightful task of telling her the bad news and that despite her doing backups, her phone was not actually backed up.


Actually, I was with her when she cleared her old phone, and I don't recall any warnings from Apple that this could occur. It seems to me that Apple should really warn a customer that:


a) what they call backup is not really backing everything up.

b) When you factory reset an old, unused phone. It will in fact delete your new phone as well,

c) I remember quite distinctly that she also couldn't factory reset her old phone until she signed into iCloud, which would delete the new phone.


Wish me luck...

May 3, 2015 10:26 AM in response to ovbg

The correct steps to follow are:

1. Backup the device.

2. Sign out of iCloud.

3. Erase all Content and Settings.


iCloud does backup all of the checked items in Settings > iCloud. As long as one signs out of iCloud on a device before erasing it, the Contacts would have remained there and be automatically uploaded to the new iPhone when the user signs into the same iCloud account on the new phone.


Once the user signs out of iCloud, the erasure of the Contacts will not impact what is in the iCloud account.


Unfortunately, it appears that your iCloud account was still activated or signed into on the old phone when the erasure took place so the Contacts were deleted from iCloud. This is how iCloud works. It allows users to keep Contacts easily synced between all devices signed into that iCloud account.

May 3, 2015 10:34 AM in response to Ralph9430

Thanks Ralph,


Yes, I agree that the "correct" steps were not taken in the correct order, but there was no warning that this was needed or data was lost, and she couldn't follow the "correct" steps, as that wouldn't allow her to reset her phone fully until she logged into iCloud. The phone still contained her personal details after a reset and she was instructed to log into iCloud to delete everything.


Secondly, I disagree that iCloud backed anything up, as if it was backed up, my wife would have a backed up copy to restore. When one deletes something, it shouldn't delete the backup, as that defeats the purpose of the backup which is in many cases, to protect against accidental deletion.


So, from what I can understand, the files are only backed up as long as you don't lose the files, and when you lose the files, you lose the backup.

May 3, 2015 4:26 PM in response to ovbg

Your backup file will still be there in her iCloud account storage space, available for restoration. But, contacts are NOT part of that backup. Content like contacts that is synch'd is not included iin the backup file since it already exists in iCloud and need not be duplicated.


One does not need to log IN to iCloud to reset a decide. The warning would have been to log OUT of iCloud first, to disable activation lock and find my iPhone for that device, then complete the reset.


IF she simply selects her iCloud account on her current iPhone, and logs out, then logs back in and enables the sliders under that accounts settings for contacts and calendars, what happens? Simply logging out of iCloud or even disabling contacts sync'd on a given device should not normally erase the synch'd copy in iCloud.


When you disable sync of contacts, there is a warning to keep contacts on the device or erase them. Even then, that should not affect the iCloud sync contents, only the device contents. Otherwise, I know of no mechanism to bulk erase all contacts on a device other than logging out of iCloud and choosing erase all context and settings.

May 3, 2015 10:40 PM in response to Michael Black

Hi Michael,


Thanks. Actually, we solved the Contacts problem as my wife realized it may have been saved on a Time Machine Backup. So, we went to the iMac, fired up her contacts, and then went to Time Machine. Sure enough, all her contacts were there, and it was easy to bring them back with Time Machine.


Now for the Calendars. This looks a bit harder as it doesn't have the automatic restore that Contacts or Mail has. It has to be done via the finder. The problem I have now is that a search says the folders may be in Library/Calendars, but there are a lot of folders there. Do I restore all folders, or just some, or others as well from a different place?

iPhone restore

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