How to retrieve deleted Phone numbers on iPhone

When you accidentally deleted a phone number on the iPhone, how do you find and get the number back? That's the problem facing many Apple users.

I had around 200 contacts on my iPhone 8 Plus. However, after a rather troublesome install of iOS 11.3, nearly all my phone numbers are randomly disappeared in the address book app with names remaining in Messages app. Could anyone tell if I can dig out the numbers from somewhere inside my iPhone? Or is there any way for this so I can retrieve those phone numbers on my iPhone?

Obviously, you wish to recover the lost phone numbers on iPhone. Before writing to us, I'm sure you tried a lot of methods by following the advice over the forums online to get this done, but unfortunately, there's no avail. Well, learn the means below and check around to see which you would rather try, depending on where the phone numbers deleted from iPhone are storing in.

Method 1: Recovering Deleted Phone Numbers on iPhone (Without Backup)

Thanks to Apple's iCloud and iTunes, it's really easy to back up phone numbers and contacts information in case of the disastrous happened on iPhone. But people sometimes cannot do the backups timely, and therefore they're struggling when they mistakenly delete phone numbers in the contact list on iPhone. Thankfully, iOS Data Recovery has been developed that makes it a breeze to restore deleted phone numbers from an iPhone, whether there're backups or not.

This particular software works quite well and is popular for being exceptionally good at file recovery. It allows iPhone users to easily recover iPhone numbers in the device's database without having to backing up online or on computer beforehand. This is the safer and more effective way of getting the phone number back after you deleted it.

The process takes little bit of point-and-click to find and retrieve phone numbers accidentally erased from iPhone device, and we'll cover all of that below.

Step 1: Analyze phone numbers (and all other data) in iPhone's memory

After setup of the program, open it and plug your iPhone to the computer using the supplied USB cable.

Choose "Recover from iOS Device" mode and click the "Start Scan" button to scan iPhone for deleted phone numbers and contacts on it.

Step 2: Preview scanning results

When the program finishes scanning files on iPhone, you will get an overview window, displaying files into categories. You can have a preview of them.

Step 3: Restore phone numbers on the iPhone

From the left list of the window, click "Contacts" category, get to check for the numbers and highlight the wanted ones to restore on the middle column, then click the "Recover" button to retrieve deleted iPhone numbers to computer.

Note that if the contacts numbers you lost couldn't be able to gotten back, they might be deleted off the iPhone a long time ago and overwritten with the new data on the device. If you're in this case, the last resort is restoring previous telephone numbers by extracting iPhone backups via iCloud and iTunes — if and only if you take the time to make a backup prior to the loss. So just recover the numbers whichever way you backed them up.

Method 2: Restoring iCloud Backup to Get Phone Numbers

Retrieving phone numbers on iPhone is fairly straightforward, and another way of doing this is through iCloud. iCloud sync allows you to have contacts all synced to the server that is able to be restored to the iPhone, so that you could bring back the important phone numbers in a painless attempt. You'll have three options to do the restoration via iCloud.

Option 1: Resync Phone Numbers with iCloud

One option is to flick wireless sync off for Contacts and turn it on again within iCloud settings on the iPhone device.

• Unlock iPhone and close out Contacts app and other all apps running behind the background. Go to iCloud on iPhone through Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud.
• Toggle off Contacts and choose Keep on My iPhone when it asks where you would like to do with the previously synced iCloud contacts on your iPhone.
• Switch back on the Contacts then tap on Merge. This operation will get all deleted phone numbers recovered to iPhone's contacts list.

Note: The phone numbers may not appear in contact list immediately and the syncing process will take a few minutes to complete.

Option 2: Recover Phone Numbers in icloud.com

As soon as you set up wireless synchronization with your contacts (Contacts toggle is ON in iCloud settings), the phone numbers deleted from iPhone will be stored with iCloud server and are readily available on computer. It would be easy to download an entire contacts archive along with the missing phone numbers to iPhone at any time. Here are the necessary steps:

• Visit icloud.com on the web and log into your iCloud account associated with your iPhone.
• Once signed in, click Settings in the main iCloud menu.
• Scroll down to the page until you see the Advanced section. From there, choose Restore Contacts for restoring deleted iPhone numbers.
• A list of archives of contacts are displayed on the window. Check the date of each one, then select the one containing the lost phone numbers you wish to retrieve onto iPhone, and click Restore to its far right position.
• Wait a little while and your complete list of phone numbers is now returned to iPhone and stayed in the Address book.

Restoring an iCloud backup is definitely the viable method for getting deleted phone numbers back on an iPhone. However, this will replace the contacts that was added to the device since the backup was taken. In addition, you can't see the contents of a backup so you will never know whether your missing phone numbers are included in that backup. This is inconvenient though.

Option 3: Use Phone Number Recovery Software

Using iOS Data Recovery utility mentioned in Method 1 to retrieve those phone numbers deleted from iPhone will outshine the solutions in this part. With it, you could preview the contacts numbers one by one before recovering process. Mostly, it ensures nothing is lost after restoration.

• After running the program, choose "Recover from iCloud Backup File" mode from the left portion, then enter iCloud login information.
• Once the iCloud backups displayed, select the most relevant one and click on Download.
• Then, select "Contacts" option and click Next to move on.
• Once downloaded, you should get a preview window. From its left column, click "Contacts" and then select the phone numbers needed to retrieve.
• Click Recover and specify a location to begin extracting phone numbers.

Method 3: Retrieving Phone Numbers with iTunes Backup

If you have no iCloud backup of deleted phone numbers, you may end up restoring with an iTunes backup to retrieve those disappeared numbers on iPhone. You could do that via official iTunes or the smart iOS Data Recover application.

Option 1: Getting Back iPhone Number from iTunes Backup

• Plug iPhone to a computer, then launch iTunes if does not open automatically.
• When iTunes detects your iPhone, it will display it as Device icon in the upper left corner of the window. Click it, then click Summary tab form the left list.
• Head to the right pane and press Restore Backup. This will open a dialog window, in which click the drop-down and choose a backup entry according to the time stamp.
• Click Restore to confirm your wish to restore the iPhone. Wait a few minutes and you should get your lost phone numbers.

Option 2: Via iOS Data Recover Tool

The utility also includes "Recover Files from iTunes Backup" mode that makes much easier to recover deleted iPhone numbers with iTunes backup files.

• To get started, select "Recover from iTunes Backup File" mode and you should see a list of iTunes backups you made for the iPhone on the screen. Choose one and click Start Scan.
• Wait till the scanning process is done. On the opening window, click "Contacts" in the left pane to reveal all contacts of the backup on the right pane.
• Locate the phone numbers and choose which ones you'd like to bring back by clicking the checkboxes.
• Hit Recover and the process will begin. This will be finishes in seconds and the phone numbers you lost will be exported to the designated folder of your choice on the computer.

Conclusion

By going through the solutions outlined practically, your lost and deleted phone numbers can become accessible again, whether you have backup files or not. Hopefully this article has given you enough to get started.