Practical Ways to Recover Contacts from Broken/Lost iPhone

How to Recover Lost iPhone Contacts from iCloud Backup

A broken/lost iPhone means all your contacts are lost, but with the assistance of iCloud, you can get them back. With iCloud, all our iPhone contacts get synced automatically, making it easy to recover contacts from broken iPhones. That’s not it. iCloud also stores your deleted contacts for up to 30 days, so there’s hope even if someone did a factory reset.

But there’s a catch. The contacts that are restored on your device using iCloud replace/overwrite the contacts that already exist. If you’re ready to take the risk, learn how to restore contacts from iCloud backup.

Method 1: Using an iPhone

If you’ve got a new phone, follow the step-by-step process to retrieve your lost contacts:

• Step 1: On your iPhone “Settings,” tap on “your name” followed by “iCloud.”

• Step 2: Toggle the “Contacts” off and tap on “Keep on my iPhone.”
• Step 3: Then toggle the contacts back on and select “Merge.” It should retrieve the synced contacts back to your iPhone within a few minutes.

Note: You cannot toggle the Contacts off if you have a screentime passcode enabled. The iPhone displays a message like this:

Method 2: Using a Mac Computer

If you don’t promptly get a new iPhone, you can use the Mac computer to retrieve your lost contacts alongside other things like calendar events and Reminders. All you need is your Apple ID and password to log into your iCloud account. If you’re wondering how can I get my old contacts back without investing hundreds on a new iPhone, follow the steps in order:

• Step 1: Open iCloud.com on your Mac computer and log in using your Apple ID and password.
• Step 2: As you’re directed to the homepage, scroll down the window and tap on the “Data Recovery” tab, followed by “Restore Contacts.”

• Step 3: The new pop-up window displays a list of archives you’ve created on your broken or lost phone. Using the date, locate the archive containing the relevant information and hit “Restore.”

• Step 4: Hit Restore once more to confirm your action and start recovering your contacts. Once the process is completed successfully, you’ll receive an email linked to your Apple ID containing the contacts. Transfer the contacts to your new iPhone whenever you get them and save them.

Additional Tip: If you haven’t synced the contacts to iCloud due to its limited storage and can’t retrieve your lost contacts, you can retrieve them from iTunes backup, which also backs up your contact data. You can also reach out to your mutual friends/family members to get the contact info, but this shouldn’t provide you access to your exclusive contacts.

Dr. Fone – Most Practical Tool to Retrieve Contacts from Broken/Lost iPhone

iCloud seems a reliable way to retrieve your lost contacts, but there are a few drawbacks to it: firstly, your contacts must be synced with iCloud, and restoring the backed-up data replaces and deletes the existing contacts. If you aren’t comfortable with that or didn’t sync your data with iCloud, you need a third-party application to do the job. And Dr. Fone-Data Recovery (iOS) is probably one of the best in this space.

Developed by Wondershare, it’s a top-rated iPhone data recovery software with the highest success rate. It can perform data recovery under any possible scenario, such as corrupt updates, accidental deletion, broken phones, malware attacks, etc. Since it provides a preview of recovered data, you can choose to recover selective files. It’s compatible with the latest iOS versions, making it reliable software for recovering your lost contacts.

Here’s how to recover deleted contacts without backup using Dr. Fone-Data Recovery (iOS) software:

• Step 1: Install and Launch Dr. Fone

On your Windows or Mac computer, visit the official Wondershare website and download the Dr. Fone-Data recovery software. Install and launch it, and tap on the “Data Recovery” module from its welcome screen.

• Step 2: Connect your Broken Phone

The new window prompts you to plug in your iOS device, so use a USB-C cable to connect and make sure to allow the connection. You can also connect them wirelessly by connecting the devices to the same WiFi.

• Step 3: Select Data to Recover

From here, Dr. Fone lets you select the data type you want to scan, be it contacts, photos, music, videos, etc. Select the relevant and click on the “Start Scan” button to start scanning your iPhone.

• Step 4: Scan the iPhone

The software takes some time to scan the available data, and the more data, the more time it takes to complete the scan.

• Step 5: Preview and Restore the Contacts

Once the scan is successfully completed, the software displays the retrieved data, which includes both available and deleted data. You can choose to preview and restore any according to your needs. Then, tap on “Recover to Computer” or “Restore to device” to restore all your contacts and other relevant data.

The best part about using this technique is that the data isn’t overwritten, and you can save your deleted contacts alongside the existing ones. As you can preview the data, you can selectively get back the contacts that you need.

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