Lost contacts

Whiteman101 · Nov 4, 2011

Hi, swapped 3GS to 4S, backed up 3GS to itunes & icloud then installed the backup onto the new 4S though itunes. Im giving the old 3GS to my partner so I got back on the 3GS and manually deleted over 300 contacts she wouldnt need. 2minutes after I had finished deleting and without me knowing, icloud ran a scheduled backup in the background through my wifi, pc and both iphones and which caused icloud to sync the old 3GS contacts onto the 4S- leaving me minus 300 contacts on the 4S. I am really hoping someone knows if and how the contacts can be retrieved. Cheers and appreciate any help

mhawk · Nov 4, 2011

The first thing I would check is at iTunes. Do not plug either phone into your computer.
Open iTunes>Go to Edit>Preferences>Click on the Devices tab. Look in the first box under Device Backups.
Hopefully you have one there, with a date prior to when things went bad, that you can restore from.

Whiteman101 · Nov 5, 2011

Thanks, I did this and iTunes does have a backup the day before I upgraded. I plugged in the 4S and restored using this backup, after rebooting the deleted numbers appeared but a couple of minutes later I went back into contacts and they had all gone again. I checked settings – iCloud showed the auto backup was on (I had switched this off before the restore) so I went through the process again and it restored from the iTunes backup and this time only restored minus all my contacts. I am not sure if iTunes backup is conflicting with iCloud backup? the iTunes backup does appear to have the contacts but as soon as I restore, it reverts back with no contacts. All the other info/apps etc appear okay, its just the contacts, thanks again for any help you can give

Whiteman101 · Nov 6, 2011

For those interested I have resolved this issue. I did call Apple support but their techs could not help. The issue was that the itunes backup which contained the full contact list could be restored but then icloud would override itunes and restore the contact list minus most of the contacts. Even deleting the icloud account did not work as when I restored from itunes, this backup still held the icloud account so after backing up it would just revert to the icoud backup not the itunes one. Problem solved by – 1/ restore from itunes back up 2/ when the phone shuts down and before rebooting unplug the wifi modem, this will prevent icloud from working. When the phone reboots the full contact list was there. I backed up again to itunes and icloud so they now both gave the full set of contacts backed up. Moral – be careful if you have two phones synced through the same icloud account and you delete information from one phone that you want kept on the other phone. Cheers.

Flashbum · Nov 28, 2011

After following the advice above, I found it frustrating as the cloud continued to update with the wrong numbers, even with Wi-Fi turned off as it went through 3G. Even leaving it off for a while did nothing.

On the phone turn off contacts under 'settings/icloud'.

When you restore, allow the iPhone to turn off and then on reboot, go back into settings/icloud and turn on the contact again and it will ask you to merge contacts. Allow. Then remove the numbers you want.

Hey presto, contacts back.

But as above, don't sync two iPhones on the same account.

mwhartman · Nov 28, 2011

I'm glad you were able to resolve this matter. I'm curious are you using Address Book, Exchange, or Gmail for your contacts?

ep2 · Nov 28, 2011

help I have tripple contacts for the same person. it said icloud and iphone contacts.? when I do a search for a contact their name appears to times some of them three times. I'm confuse. when i first got the phone imported from outlook. now i think its pulling from gmail as well.
any help would be appreciated.

Flashbum · Nov 30, 2011

mwhartman said:
I'm glad you were able to resolve this matter. I'm curious are you using Address Book, Exchange, or Gmail for your contacts?

I use Contacts on the iPhone. I do not sync this with anything else.
I have my iTunes back up and hard copies (just in case).
Also, saved in Gmail (for extra Just in Case)

I have a lot of sites/images that need to be kept safe, so I find by allowing them all to stand by themselves, it is much more secure.

Might sound daft but I would rather manually input numbers/contacts than risking losing all to software I cannot control. Glad I did with the iCloud (it needs sorting Apple!).

Although I didn't end up using your way, your advice was a great springboard to discover my answer... thank you.