Lost All Contacts on iPhone? Try to Recover!

Losing all your contacts on your iPhone can be a frustrating experience, especially if you rely on them to communicate with friends, family, and colleagues. However, don't worry, there are several steps you can take to recover your contacts and prevent this from happening again in the future.

In this guide, we will walk you through the solutions to fix the issue - lost all contacts on iPhone and quick process of recovering your lost contacts.

Why suddenly lost all contacts on iPhone?

Missing contacts from iPhone can result from kinds of factors, and the followings are some main reasons for this issue.

• iOS update or downgrade. If you lost all contacts on iPhone after updating or downgrading iOS, that may because contacts are not synced back with iCloud or some problem occurs during the process.
• iTunes sync problem. If you sync iPhone contacts with iTunes, chances are that your iPhone contacts get erased or lost due to iTunes problems.
• iPhone Jailbreak. A jailbroken iPhone always brings some unexpected system issues that cause your iPhone not working, which may explain why your iPhone contacts get lost.
• Accidental deletion. Chances are also be that you accidentally delete contacts or operate wrongly with iCloud contacts sync, which makes you lose iPhone contacts more or less.

5 Fixes to “lost all contacts on iPhone 11/12/13/14” issue

In this part, we will guide you through the effective solutions to get lost contacts back to your iPhone. You can try them one by one until your contacts retrieved. Optionally, you can skip to the next part to know how to recover lost contacts from iPhone in one-click.                                             

1# Check iPhone settings for contacts

Sometimes, your contacts lost doesn’t mean that you had deleted them from your iPhone. Instead, any wrong settings on your iPhone may make your contacts unavailable. Just follow the tips below to check your iPhone settings for contacts before any troubleshooting.

Tip 1. Check group settings for contacts
If your contacts have backed up to iCloud but lost on your iPhone, you can try to check your group settings for contacts.

Just go to the Phone app > Choose Contacts > Tap Groups in the top left corner > Uncheck All iCloud and tap Done to confirm.

Now, you can check out the missing ones and add them to your address book. Once it’s done, back to Groups settings and select the All iCloud option.

Tip 2. Make sure “On My iPhone” is selected as a default
iPhone allows you to select a preferred account for contacts. As a result, ensure that “On My iPhone” has been set as the default account in the Contacts settings.

Open the Settings app on your iPhone > Scroll down and tap on Contacts > Tap Default Account > Make sure On My iPhone is selected.

2# Sign out of iCloud and sign back in

You can try to force the lost contacts to appear again by signing out and back into your Apple ID. It usually works, so we hope that it gets the job done for you to get out of the issue - lost all contacts on iPhone. This solution can also be workable if some contacts are grayed out on iPhone.

Step 1. Launch the Settings app > Tap your profile > Scroll down and tap Sign out.

Note: If you have enabled Find My iPhone, you will be asked to enter your Apple ID password to continue.

Step 2. When you go to the “Keep a copy of...”page, toggle on the switch next to Contacts and other data to ensure they remain on your iPhone > Finally, tap Sign Out to confirm.

Step 3. Sign into Apple ID again. Wait for some time, and head into the Contacts app to see if you have gotten lost contacts back.

3# Turn off & on iCloud Contacts

To avoid any sync issues that make iPhone contacts missing, you can simply toggle off iCloud Contacts and toggle on it again.

Open iPhone Settings app > Tap [your name] > Choose iCloud > Toggle off the switch next to Contacts > When a window prompts, select Keep on My iPhone.

Note: Alternatively, if you trust iCloud to restore all contacts without issue, you may select Delete from the iPhone to delete all previous synced contacts. But it’s more recommended to choose Keep on My iPhone since it’s safer.

When it is done, you can enable iCloud Contacts again, and select Merge to merge the contacts with the existing ones on your iPhone.

4# Force restart iPhone

Force restarting iPhone can work for many iPhone problems. It is easy to operate, and hope it can solve your lost all contacts on iPhone issue.

To force restart iPhone with Face ID, quickly press and release the Volume Up button > Quickly press and release the Volume Down button. Finally, press and hold the Side button. When the Apple logo appears, release the button.

5# Restore contacts from iCloud/iTunes backup

If you have used iCloud or iTunes to backup iPhone contacts, you may try to get lost contacts back by restoring contacts from your backup.

Please keep in mind that if you have no the latest backup, you may lose your iPhone data more or less after the restore process. Besides, you need to factory reset your iPhone before restoring iCloud/iTunes backup.

How to restore contacts from iCloud backup
Step 1. Turn on and setup your iPhone > From the Set Up your iPhone page, tap Restore from iCloud Backup.

Step 2. Enter your Apple ID and password > Choose the latest iCloud backup to restore.

How to restore contacts from iTunes backup
Step 1. Make sure you have the latest version of iTunes installed on your computer > connect your iPhone to computer with USB.

Step 2. Launch iTunes > Select your iPhone > Click Summary > Tap Restore Backup.

Step 3. Pick the latest version of backup > Enter the password if asked > Click Restore and wait for the restore task to finish.

Quickest way to recover all lost contacts on iPhone without backup

Lost all contacts on iPhone was painful enough.  If the contacts have gone, and you have no backup available to restore them, the only way out may be to rely on a iOS data recovery tool to get lost contacts retrieved. Here we recommend AOMEI Data Recovery for iOS. With one-click, you can perform iPhone data recovery and get wanted files back.

AOMEI Data Recovery for iOS can be your best choice, if you are looking for a iOS data recovery tool that can:
👍 recover types of iPhone data, covering contacts, photos, videos, voice memos, chat history, etc.,
👍 deeply scan all lost and deleted iPhone files in a short time, 
👍 preview and select wanted data to recover.

Download and install AOMEI Data Recovery for iOS to your computer, and check out how to recover all lost contacts on iPhone.

Step 1. Connect your iPhone to computer with USB > Tap Trust on your iPhone to let it readable.

Step 2. Launch AOMEI Data Recovery for iOS, and click Scan from the left pane > Click Scan Now to begin.

Step 3. Wait for it to scan all your lost files > Click Contacts to preview and choose the contacts you’d like to recover > Tap Recover from upper-right corner to confirm.

Wait for the recovery to finish, and you can view these contacts on your iPhone.

❤️‍Warm tip❤️‍
It’s a wise choice to regularly backup your iPhone files to avoid data loss. Don’t need to backup everything on your iPhone, FoneTool provide you with Selective Backup solution to selectively backup iPhone. Feel free to try it to backup specific data each time.

Summary

That’s all for the solutions when you lost all contacts on iPhone. Indeed, it is frustrating to lose your iPhone contacts and any other data. Hope these solutions and the third-party data recovery tool have done you a favor.

Remember to regularly backup your iPhone to prevent losing important data in the future. If this guide is helpful, please share it with others.