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HELP! iPhone Contacts Missing (What You Need to Do)

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Founder & Editor-in-Chief

Herby has a healthy obsession with all things technology, especially smartphones. He loves to rip things apart to see how they work. He is responsible for the editorial direction, strategy, and growth of Gotechtor.

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“iPhone contacts missing or disappearing” can leave any iPhone user in chock.

In fact, an old friend desperately messaged me on Facebook Messenger that all his iPhone contacts have suddenly gone missing.

If that sounds familiar to you, this simple guide will help you recover lost iCloud contacts back to your iPhone.

In my friend’s case, he had set up everything as it should be. He had turned on “Contacts” in iCloud settings. So, all his contacts should have been uploaded and stored in iCloud.

He had also turned on “iCloud Backup”. Therefore, his iPhone was backing up when it’s connected to power, locked, and on Wi-Fi.

His last successful iCloud backup was two days ago. But, when we tried to restore its contacts from iCloud and iTunes backup, they weren’t there.

So, what could possibly go wrong here?

How to Fix Contacts Disappeared from iPhone?

My friend has recently deleted one of his exchange email accounts that he’ll no longer use in the future. Unfortunately, it turned out all his contacts were syncing with that email.

All he had to do was to add that email address back and turn on Contacts sync to restore his iPhone contacts.

iphone contacts missing names

If that was your situation after you got your contacts back, make sure to set up another email as default before you delete that email account.

Or simply add a new one, and toggle on all the stuff that you need to sync with iCloud as shown in the image above.

In case this exchange account was from your employer or school and you don’t have access to it anymore, you have lost your contacts for good. And there’s no way to get them back without access to that email.

The Takeaway

Never use your work or school email to sync your iPhone contacts. You don’t own that email, but they do.

Once you finish school or leave your employer you won’t have access to that email anymore. And also, they have the right to monitor everything you do with their email and can revoke it at any time.

Founder & Editor-in-Chief

Herby has a healthy obsession with all things technology, especially smartphones. He loves to rip things apart to see how they work. He is responsible for the editorial direction, strategy, and growth of Gotechtor.

Herby Jasmin

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