How to deal with Lost Contacts on your iPhone

Mistakes happen all the time, but they can propagate quickly in the digital world. For example, many people may accidentally delete the phone number of a friend or co-worker while trying to add an email address or a new number. For iPhone users, deleting or losing a contact doesn’t mean it is gone forever. If you haven’t yet synchronized your computer and your iPhone, use iTunes. If you have synchronized your devices, use your most current backup or archive.

                     

Instructions

From iTunes

1. Turn on your computer and open iTunes.

2. Sync your iPhone to the computer with the USB data cable.

3. Locate the iPhone in the “Devices” column at the left of the iTunes application window.

4. Right-click on the iPhone icon in the “Devices” column and select “Restore From Backup.” Select one of the backup versions from the drop-down menu and click the “Restore” button. This will restore any contacts that you have lost since your last sync in iTunes.

5. Now, review the Contact list on your device and you will find that all lost contacts should be restored to your list.

From a Backup or Archive

1. Open the Address Book application. Select “Import” from the File menu and then “Address Book Archive.” This command imports your most previous archive of your contacts.

2. Restore contacts from a backup by navigating to the Application Support/Address Book folder of the most-recent backup.

3. Make sure the folder contains your list of contacts. And then copy the Address Book folder from the backup drive and paste it into the same location on your computer.This step will replace the folder and restores the data.

4. Move to an older backup until you find a folder that contains the data you’ve lost if you find that most current back up is also lacking your list of contacts.

Tips & Warnings

Create an archive in Address Book by selecting “File,” “Address Book Archive,” and then “Export.”

Make a separate backup of your contacts apart from the one that automatically occurs each time you sync in iTunes. iTunes replaces the backup before it each time it syncs automatically, leaving on your computer only what was on your phone at the time of the sync.