Contacts won't sync from iPhone to icloud

Hi Tim! I had the same problem and I think I just solved it.

After adding a few e-mail account into your iPhone, some automatically propose you to synchronise, e-mails, contacts, calendars and reminders. Thus, they steal your default contact account and save new contacts into your e-mail account instead of iCloud. (I notice this happened to me even when I selected iCloud as my default account in Settings > Contacts.)

My recommandation:

• Go into Contacts and scroll down to see how many contacts you have,
• Into Contacts clic on Groups (top left corner) and unselect iCloud to see which contacts are out of your iCloud account,
• Repeat prior step and only sélect one account like Gmail to locate where missing iCloud contacts are saved,
• Export your contacts from your Gmail account and import them in iCloud.

When you've done that and to avoid other problems, go to Settings > Contacts and unselect/reselect iCloud as your default account and go to Contacts > Groups and only sélect iCloud.

Hope this will help and that you’ll understand my frenchglish!

I had the same issued. With the suggestion of the very friendly and happy Apple support staff, I did the following:

After trying out a number of possible solution, the problem continued. The staff suggested that I do a backup of my iphone (using iTune) and then reset the iphone and restore everything back.

Once I did the backup of my phone, the problem was resolved before I reset my phone. I suspect it was because my phone as interrupted previously (that must be a few weeks ago) while I tried to sync to my computer. As a result, the process didn't complete fully and that caused some unknown issues to my iOS

Now my phone is back to functional stage. Finally. Yeah!

Give it a try and it may solve the problem you face currently. All the best.

Mine did that too. We found out that it was actually syncing but it was to my Outlook because that was the Default Setting in my Contacts Settings.

TimK - Did you ever find a fix?

I've been through Apple chat, on the phone with them ....still not working. My problem was my default was set to an email account, not iCloud. This happens when you turn iCloud off, it has to pick a default. I don't know when this happened; however, I have many contacts linked to that email account. I've deleted the email account and added it again (per Apple), that didn't work. I've turned iCloud off, on.. while merging in the process but it doesn't merge email contacts to iCloud, reset phone, etc. I guess I need to duplicate the contacts or copy the contacts from the email account and add them to iCloud... does anyone know if this is possible? Thank you!

Hi TMHahn - I did #3 and can't get it fixed. My problem was my default was set to an email account, not iCloud. I know realize this happens when you turn iCloud off, it has to pick a default. I don't know when this happened; however, I have many contacts linked to that email account. I've been through Apple chat, on the phone with them ....still not working. I've deleted the email account and added it again (per Apple), that didn't work. I've turned iCloud off, on.. while merging in the process but it doesn't merge email contacts to iCloud, reset phone, etc. I guess I need to duplicate the contacts or copy the contacts from the email account and add them to iCloud...is this even possible? Or any other suggestions? Thank you!

I have the exact same problem. Yesterday I waited almost one hour for a technician to pick up the phone. The technician spent probably 2 hours and could not solve the problem. He forwarded me to an advisor. Spent over an hour or so with the advisor and nada. Then he asked me to download icloud for windows and told me the steps I need to take. He said he will get back to me today to see if the issue is resolved. The issue is not resolved and he did not get back to me. I left a VM as well. Seems like an open issue that Apple can't handle.

Solution #2 appears to have worked. Yes I have dups but they can be eliminated. Thank you.

Frustrating to hear that 100's of people have posted same issues and no cures. I've had Mac's for 20 years, love them, but they have stopped making anything easy. And support is hit/miss unless you have appt and go to genius bar. Even then with iphone and desk top instead of lap top, tricky. You don't want to hear how my new desk top developed a fragmented hard drive because tech support kept telling me to transfer data, and then it took 7 hours, over two days, with Senior Tech Support to fix it....$2K for computer.

What a totally useless reply!

I came here looking for a solution to the same problem - about which I see many complaints going back years. Most often answered in the same unhelpful way as this one.

Shame on you, Apple, for leaving technical support to apparently untrained staff.

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

I was having same trouble and found that Google was showing as my default for contacts and I couldn't get it to stay on iCloud under settings, so since I never use Google for my contact list, I went to settings, contacts then Accounts, Gmail and turned off contacts.. now anything I now add is syncing from iphone to icloud contact list.

If you still need help

If you still need help, contact Apple Support.

This is the correct answer.

WHAT is?

Option 3 worked for me just now. I have been dealing with this for about 3 months.

I tried #2 and it worked for me!

Interesting to see if it continues updating or if this is needed from time to time...