Contacts disappeared from iPhone? restore them now!

Apple iPhone's native address book app—Contacts— is part of a personal information manager, which helps you store names, addresses, email, company info and other relative data for your friends and family members. To put it simply, your contacts are essentially your life that you can't afford to lose them.

It can be a bit of a pain when you realize that your contacts suddenly disappeared from iPhone, but don't fear; it's quite possible to find them and get those contacts back to iPhone. In this tutorial we will put together some helpful tips on how to retrieve disappeared contacts on iPhone, no matter what model you're using.

Sign out of iCloud and Sign in Again

If your iPhone is failing to show contacts, it will likely be resolved by signing out of iCloud from iPhone and signing in back. It's not a foolproof solution, but it's worth a try. Here's how it's done:

• On iPhone, go to Settings > [Your Name].
• Scroll down to the bottom and tap Sign Out.
• Sign in to iCloud with your Apple ID again.
• Go to Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud > Contacts, toggle the switch back ON.

Turn Contact OFF on iCloud and Re-sync Again

An iPhone may not be displaying the contacts due to a failed synchronization between iPhone and iCloud. That's the reason why you need to toggle off the Contacts in iCloud and then turn on it to reload all data to restore contacts disappeared from iPhone device.

You'd be surprised how often re-syncing your contacts in iCloud solves the problem. Here's how.

• On iPhone, go to Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud.
• Toggle Contacts OFF.
• Select "Keep on My iPhone" when prompts.
• Restart iPhone and go to Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud.
• Turn Contacts ON again, and select "Merge".

All your contacts should slowly show up now and go back to normal.

Recover Disappeared Contacts on iPhone Via 3rd Party Tool

If none of both fixes above work, chances are that you've not had contacts synced with iCloud before. In this case, the solution is to scan the internal memory of iPhone to search for missing contacts. In the web, you'll find a wide range of iPhone contacts recovery applications to choose from. If you need to restore lost contacts in a simple way, then iOS Data Recovery is a great solution.

The program scans through the dark recesses of your iPhone's storage automatically to find any deleted contacts that have not yet been overwritten, and display them in a organized way that most people are comfortable with. You then can preview them prior to restoration. It also supports recovery of numerous other types of files such as photos, messages, call logs, notes, documents, WhatsApp chats, voice memos and more.

Step 1: Run iPhone contacts recovery software

To begin with, fire up the program, you will be presented with the options to do the different tasks. You will want to choose "Recover from iOS Device" to begin your recovery process.

Next, plug your iPhone that lost contacts on into the computer.

After connection, the program will automatically recognize your iPhone and load the basic info of the device on the interface.

Step 2: Select "Contacts" type to scan

You will then be presented with a screen to ask you what type of file you want to recover. In this example, we're going to retrieving deleted contacts on iPhone, here check the box next to "Contacts", and click Scan button.

Now wait for several minutes while the software search for the deleted contacts.

Step 3: Getting back the contacts that are missing on iPhone

When the scan is complete, you will see an overview screen with all found files organized, just like the image demonstrated below.

The preview function allows you to click the specific contact item to view its details in case there are some you do not need.

Next, you can select one or more contacts you want to recover, and click Recover button at the bottom right corner. It's pretty simple!

Note that all recovered contacts will be saved on the computer in CSV, HTML or VCF file that you can then import into your Contacts on iPhone.

Change Groups Settings

Changing Groups settings in Contacts app can potentially fix the problem. It's fast and simple. Follow these steps:

• On iPhone, open the Phone app.
• Tap Contacts tab.
• Tap Groups in the top left corner.
• Uncheck the All iCloud option.
• Select All on My iPhone, then tap Done.

Reinstall Google or Outlook Account

Another possible way to get back disappeared contacts on your iPhone is reinstall your Google or outlook account. Did you recently deleted any external account from your iPhone, like Outlook, Exchange or Google? If you found the contacts disappeared just after the account deletion, then the problem can be fixed easily.

All you need to is add that account back into the iPhone and reboot the device. Done! Your contacts restore.

Restore Finder/ iTunes backup to get disappeared contacts

The last thing to try is to restore your iPhone from backup made in Finder or iTunes. Provided you have backed up the device to Finder or iTunes before contacts were disappeared, then you're lucky. You can restore deleted contacts quickly.

It is worth mentioning that this will overwrite anything you have added to the device after that backup.

• Open Finder or iTunes on your computer.
• Connect your iPhone to the machine.
• Click the device icon on the window.
• Select Restore Backup.
• Select the backup file that contains your lost contacts.
• Click Restore.