How to Recover Deleted Contacts from iPhone

Joy Taylor Last Updated: Jan. 20, 2021

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There are some people who accidentally lost contacts after the iOS update failed, and some people who mistakenly deleted contacts while organizing the iPhone contact list. So if you lost contacts, how can you recover your deleted contacts?

Everything will be okay if you saved your contacts to somewhere like iCloud or Gmail since you can easily restore them back to your iPhone. But if you didn’t, you would in trouble because it’s hard to retrieve deleted contacts without using a backup.

But no worries!! In this post, 5 great ways to restore deleted contacts with or without backups are recommended. Keep on reading and figure out the best one for you.

How to Recover Deleted Contacts and Numbers on iPhone without Backup

As we found, most people actually didn’t back up their iPhone before and never synced their contacts to iCloud. So there is no backup available for them to retrieve the deleted contacts. In this situation, is there some potential method people can have a try?

In fact, the contacts you deleted will not be quickly erased from the phone memory, and still, be recoverable. If you can get them from the inner database and removed the label of “Deleted” on your iPhone, they will appear again on your device Contacts app.

But most of us don’t know well in programming, so we have to rely on some top iPhone data recovery software to do this work. And below we’ll tell you the detailed steps to recover deleted contacts from iPhone using PhoneRescue for iOS, a professional recovery utility that enables you to directly recover deleted contacts back to your iPhone without backups.

Let’s download the trial version of PhoneRescue to scan the deleted contacts. And follow the 3 Steps to directly recover deleted contacts from iPhone:

Step 1. Run PhoneRescue fro iOS on Computer

Once you launched the PhoneRescue for iOS on the computer, you will see there are 3 options, you can plug in your iPhone and then choose the Recover from iOS Device. Click the right arrow to continue.

Choose Recover from iOS Device

Step 2. Select Contacts to Scan

Now you will see all the data you may have on your iPhone. You can unselect all and choose the Contacts and Click OK to get deleted contacts on your iPhone.

Select Contacts to Scan

Step 3. Preview and Recover Contacts to iPhone

Preview deleted contacts, check the items that you want to recover, and click the To Device buttons to retrieve the deleted contacts to your iPhone.

Recover iPhone Contacts to Computer or Device

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How to Retrieve Deleted Phone Numbers on iPhone via iCloud

If you have ever synced your iPhone contacts via iCloud, then there is a chance to find the deleted ones. This is a little known feature that Apple added since iOS 8, Apple will regularly archive a list of Contacts that can be restored to an iOS device.

To Restore Contacts from iCloud.com

If you want to know how to recover deleted contacts from iCloud to iPhone, here’s how to do it:

1. Go to iCloud.com in a web browser, enter your Apple ID and password.
2. If you have turned on two-factor authentication, you need to enter the code that you received on a trusted device.
3. Click Settings, scroll down a little, choose “Restore Contacts” under Advanced.
4. Choose an archive of contacts to restore the contacts from iCloud to your iPhone.

Restore Deleted Contacts to iPhone via iCloud

To Export Contacts from iCloud.com

Except for enabling the Restore Contacts option, you can also export contacts from iCloud to iPhone. Here are the steps:

Step 1. Export contacts from the iCloud to the computer

1. Go to iCloud.com and sign in > Click on Contacts.
2. Click the Settings button on the bottom-left corner.
3. Click Select All or you can tap Ctrl on the keyboard and select the contacts you want to recover.
4. Then click Export vCard, all the selected contacts will be saved on your computer.

How to Retrieve Deleted Phone Numbers on iPhone

Step 2. Get the Contacts and Phone Number on your iPhone

1. Find the .vcf file in the folder and email it to yourself.
2. And the saved contacts will be attached to your email and you can open them on your iPhone.

How to Retrieve Deleted Contacts on iPhone without Computer

It would also be easy to retrieve deleted contacts on iPhone without a computer. If you ever backed up all your data to the iCloud and enabled iCloud to back up iPhone automatically, iCloud would keep your iPhone data on a date. So you can just restart your iPhone by Erase All Content and Settings and Restore your iPhone from iCloud. Minutes later, the contacts you deleted will be recovered to your device.

Step 1. Erase the iPhone

Go to Settings > Tap General on the screen > Choose the Reset at the bottom > Click on Erase All Content and Settings.

Erase Your iPhone

Step 2. Restore iPhone from iCloud backup

Follow the instructions on the screen. Once you see the Apps& Data, you should choose the Restore from iCloud Backup. Log into the same iCloud account, and choose the backup and go on restoring.

Restore iPhone from iCloud Backup

Recover Deleted Contacts from iPhone Backup

Normally, if you have backed up your iPhone to the computer using iTunes before you deleted the contacts, you can restore your iPhone from iTunes backup to get back your lost contacts.

Here is how to restore deleted contacts from iTunes backups.

Step 1. Run iTunes

Connect your iPhone to the computer which already owns the iTunes backup you need. iTunes will automatically launch once it detected your iPhone.

Step 2. Restore Contacts from iTunes Backup

Tap on the device icon > Click on Summary > Choose the Restore iPhone button and click on it to restore your iPhone.

Restore Deleted Contacts from iPhone Backups with iTunes

But you’d better think twice before restoring for the following reasons.

• It’s dangerous to restore an iPhone from backup especially when you don’t know whether there are some contacts saved to the backup file. Because, all the current iPhone data will be replaced by the backup files, in other words, you may accidentally lose some important data that you recently added but didn’t save to the backup before.
• What’s more, if you don’t know what files stored in your backup, your iPhone may get restored from a wrong backup and then filled with many useless data and files, which could a tragedy you would never want to see.

Recover Deleted Contacts from iTunes Backup to iPhone Selectively

Considering iTunes backup will overwrite the iPhone, accidences happened a lot. Therefore, to safely and selectively recover deleted contacts from iPhone backup, you are suggested to try some iPhone backup extractor apps. Here, let’s take a look at how to recover deleted contacts from iTunes selectively with PhoneRescue for iOS, which supports preview all contacts stored in iTunes backups and lets you restore any of them back to your iPhone.

Step 1. Run PhoneRescue for iOS

Go to the official website and Download the latest version of PhoneRescue for iOS to computer, install and run it. If you want to restore your contacts to your iPhone, you need to connect your iPhone to the computer.

Step 2. Recover from iTunes Backups

Choose Recover from Backup and click on the right arrow to the next page. All the iTunes backup you own on the computer will be listed in front of you. Select one of them to go on. Then there will pop up a window that contains the Scan backup and Compare. Choose one of them to get only your lost contacts.

Recover Deleted Contacts on iPhone with iTunes Backup

Step 3. Scan Contacts on iTunes Backup

Now all the data the iTunes backup has will show up. You can unselect all first and then select Contacts. Click the OK button to scan the lost iPhone contacts.

Check Contacts Category and Head to OK Button

Step 4. Preview and Recover Deleted Contacts

Preview all contacts on backup, check the items you want to recover, and click the To Device button to recover contacts to your iPhone or click the To Computer button to download the contacts to Mac or PC.

How to Recover Contacts from iTunes to iPhone

The Bottom Line

That’s all for how to recover deleted contacts from iPhone with or without backups. If you still can’t find your deleted contacts, it means they have been overwritten and cannot be recovered anymore.

To avoid such a situation in the future, you’d better back up your iPhone regularly. AnyTrans, one iOS data management tool lets you backup iPhone to computer over Wi-Fi automatically and regularly. You can download it to have a try.

Joy Taylor

Member of iMobie team as well as an Apple fan, love to help more users solve various types of iOS & Android related issues.