Friday 21 June 2013

How to restore your iPhone contacts?

Ever accidentally deleted your contacts or somehow your full address book is gone from your iPhone?

It happened to me. Obviously. So I'm here to share the good news.

Here's some free ways to get it going, and when I mean free, it's free (not like some websites who duped you thinking it is 'free' but in reality they will ask you to pay them with a 'full' version!)

1) Restore from iTunes backup or iCloud backup
This is provided if you have do regular backup.

Connect your phone and let iTunes discover it. Cancel the sync and look for Restore from Backup.
It should indicate the last date you have last backed up with.
Click on it and wait for them to restore. It might take a while so you probably should leave it on its own til it reboots.
You should get your contacts back then.
If you can't, go to method 2.

For iCloud, refer here http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4859

2) iFunbox
Yes, you use free iFunbox (with annoying secretive download of the search bar that changes your Firefox/IE settings).

Then, go to your last iTunes backup. If you have no idea where is it:

Windows XP:
\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\


Windows Vista or Windows 7:
\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\


Replace USERNAME with your personal account name.
 Then, in the folder (you might see a few so use the search function) copy the file 31bb7ba8914766d4ba40d6dfb6113c8b614be442 somewhere else and rename it to AddressBook.sqlitedb.

Using iFunbox, go to var/mobile/Library/AddressBook and overwrite AddressBook.sqlitedb.
Also overwrite the file in var/root/Library/AddressBook too.

Once you have done this, you should see the contacts back into your phone. 


 To prevent future loss of data (if it's because of phone crash), avoid using Facebook and Whatsapp applications at the same time. This is what I have read from forums and it did happen to me.

Meanwhile, do leave comments if you need future help. 

Will be updating if you need help.