Lost All Your Contacts?
Here's How to Recover Them from a Stolen Android Phone

Part 1: What to Do If Your Android Device is Lost or Stolen?

A lost phone, theft, or breakage does not only mean loss of a valuable tool but loss of important contacts, photos, and data including your bank details. And everyone has faced such misfortune in their life more than once. Let’s take a look at the necessary steps you should follow soon after your phone goes missing.

The sudden realization that you have permanently misplaced your pocket best friend, fills your head with several concerns. However, immediate and appropriate actions can save one from further damage and protect your valuable data.

Method 1. Lock/Erase Your Android Remotely

The first and foremost thing should be to erase or lock the stolen or lost device remotely so that the chances of a third party going through your personal details is nullified. The course depends on the operating system of one’s device. Try to sign in to “com/android/find” with your existing Gmail account from any web browser and click on “Secure Device.” Then change the old password and set up a new one. Similarly, there are apps available online that can be used to erase your data or lock your phone. But, most of them require pre-installation of a device finder app.

Method 2. Change Your Passwords

Nowadays, everyone’s phone is password protected through PIN, pattern, or fingerprint. But those are easy to crack open. So the best way to protect your data from a third party, change all the PIN or password from all the accounts logged in or signed in from your stolen/lost phone.

Method 3. Contact Your Cellular Provider

In case of a theft, if the person is trying to operate your phone, then there might be some data use. So, as soon as possible contact your wireless provider or visit a nearby store of your provider and ask them to suspend your cellular service, you can also get a new connection that has the same contact information. Your service provider can deactivate the device and feasibly delete your personal information as well.

Method 4. Contact Your Bank

In the digital era, everyone is using online-banking, so the smart thing to do as soon as your phone goes missing is to inform your bank and request them to suspend all transactions made through mobile. If you are a credit card user, then you should call your bank and initiate the credit card cancellation process while applying for a new one.

Part 2: How to Recover Contacts from Lost Android Phone?

If you’ve lost your device and want your contacts back, then Google backup is only your savior.

If fortunately, you have taken a backup of your contacts earlier, then you can stay relaxed as the answer to your question, “how to recover contacts from lost Android phone” will be YES!

However, if you haven’t backup, we are mentioning the steps for the same as well so that you can turn it on now and get saved for the future if any such incident happens. Following are the steps to turn on backup on your device.

• Step 1: Go to “Settings”.
• Step 2: Click on “System” then “Backup”.
• Step 3: Turn on “Backup” to “Google Drive”.

Now that you have a backup of your contacts, here is how to restore them. Of course, your mobile is stolen, so we are assuming that you’re doing it in your new phone.

• Step 1: Open “Settings” and head to “Google”.
• Step 2: Look for “Restore Contacts” option under “Services”. In some devices, you can access the “Restore Contacts” by tapping “Google” > “Setup and Restore” > “Restore Contacts”.
• Step 3: Now, select the Google account you used in your old phone.
• Step 4: Disable “SIM card” or “Device Storage” if you don’t want the contacts to get saved in any of these.
• Step 5: Finally, tap “Restore” and you’re done!

Points to keep in mind:

• You should know your Google credentials that you used in your lost or stolen phone. This is because, if you need to add the same Google account in the new phone. If you can’t remember the credentials, you may get a hard time restoring your contacts.
• Another fact you should keep in mind, it is not possible to back up from a higher android version to a lower Android version.

Part 3: Tips to Retrieve Lost Contacts on Android

Android Data Recovery is by far one of the most reliable Android Contact recovery tools that aid you in recovering precious contact information and relevant data using only your phone’s SIM card. You can use this method to recover data before your phone’s hard drive is overwritten with new data. It doesn’t matter if your data is lost/deleted by accident, formatting, breakage, or damage. You can easily follow a few simple steps to retrieve contacts from Android SIM.

Tip 1: Check Whether Your Contacts Are Deleted

Note: It is best that this software is downloaded and used from your PC or desktop, as operating it on your phone may pose a further risk. First off, you may need to check if your contacts have indeed been permanently deleted from your phone or not!

• Step 1: Unlock your device and open ‘Contacts’.
• Step 2: Open the ‘Menu’ options and select ‘Settings’, then move to ‘Contacts to Display’.
• Step 3: Choose to display all your contacts.

Now, simply check if all the contacts that were lost have been retrieved or not. If yes, then it was simply because those contacts got hidden unknowingly.

Tip 2: How to Restore Lost Contacts on Android Using Dr.Fone - Data Recovery

If you have just lost your data and contacts on your Android phone, it is way too soon to give up on it! You can use the Dr.Fone - Data Recovery software to retrieve all data with zero hassle. Dr.Fone has over 17 years of industrial experience in recovering data, and it is now integrated with Android scanning technology, which supports a wide array of devices.

Using the Dr.Fone Data Recovery Software, you can retrieve any type of data from deleted messages, lost photos, videos, and so on. No matter what condition your phone might be in, whether malfunctioning, virus-infected or critically damaged, with Dr.Fone you can rest easy.

Dr.Fone - Data Recovery (Android)

Recover Deleted Files from Android Without Root

• Recover data from Android devices.
• Supports to recover Contacts, Messages, Call history, Video, Photo, Audio, WhatsApp message & attachments, documents, etc.
• Supports 6000+ Android phones and tablets from brands like Samsung, HTC, Motorola, LG, Sony, Google.
• Highest retrieval rate in the industry.

Available on: Windows

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Let’s now take a look at the steps you can follow to retrieve data using Dr.Fone Android Data Recovery:

• Step 1: Connect your Android phone to your computer through its USB port, launch the Dr.Fone software on your PC and click on the Data Recovery module. 

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• Step 2: Ensure that your USB port has been debugged. Dr.Fone will display a list of data types you can select from to specify on exactly what you wish to recover. This enables you to retrieve data selectively. After the selection is made, you can click on the ‘Start Scan’ button to continue the data recovery process. Dr.Fone will continue to recover data in the background and keep updating the list. This will take you a few minutes. Be patient during this time.

• Step 3: Now, you can selectively preview the files that have been recovered by Dr.Fone from your Android Device. You can just select the file and click ‘Recover’. They will be saved on your computer.

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or Try our Dr.Fone App on mobile >>

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Conclusion

The usage of Android phones has increased rapidly since the global expansion of internet and it has become an intricate part of our daily lives. Getting fascinated by all the cool features like social media, gaming, and clicking pictures we tend to not remember the fact that contacts are most valuable information in a device. Though managing contacts sounds like a pretty easy job, but it is absolutely not.

With Dr. Fone toolkit you can put your worry of losing contacts to rest forever. Recovering contact information from your lost or stolen androids using this special tool is not only simple but risk free at the same time. This special contact recovery toolkit can take away the hassle of managing your phonebook forever.