Lost Contacts During iPhone 2.2 Update: How to restore

Unfortunately this did not work for me. I “blew it” by driving too fast through MobileMe set up which wiped out my contacts on the iPhone. I use Thunderbird and only later realised that I was not going to easily sync with my Mac’s address book. I don’t really care because my iPhone universe is rather independent of my desk top universal and keeping my email addresses and contacts on mac and iPhone is not essential. But, I was cooked. Iphone contacts all gone.

I disable mobileMe completely made certain that iTunes was not locked into MobileMe any more and was ready for direct sync. I looked in my prefs, found a back up made on November 18th, which would have had 95% of all my contacts… I follow the above, the back up was on the list of “Restore from Back up” after right clicking on Devices, but when it was finished, my contacts list was still empty.

so the recipe did not work..

I love u…. i love u…. I love u.

I was gutted when i lost all my contacts, but this worked great and i have them all back

many thanks

Boooo hoooooo

It does not work for me. It says that the backup data is corrupted and hence i still have not been able to get back the contacts please help me out

This is how you solve all your problems with syncing phone you go into you info tab in itunes and sync with windows address book or outlook and click apply. After your sync is complete go look in your program you choose to sync with and make sure they are there. Then you will know you have a back up of contacts and when phone crashes no more crying because you will know you have them on your computer. Lets stop blaming the phone how about making sure you set up the sync properly.

That worked perfectly! You’re a lifesaver, thank you so much!

I have made that exeple that you have given. But there i have a backup “unknown” the name and is from 2001.
how can i find a old backup. my problem is that i have formated my hdd before this moment, and can`t find a new backup.

is there any chance to take my contacts back?
is somwhere seved in the iphone?

Now, my heart is back in the chest. Everything is back to the iPhone! This tip is INCREDIBLY helpful and simple! Thanks soooo much!

Good post for backing up your phone but updated 2.2 on coworkers phone who had never sync’ed their phone. So there was no backup. My bad for not backing up the iPhone first.

Learned my lesson.

Good my friend this still working on 3.0 you save my live

Thank you for the information but it didn’t help me. I lost all of my contacts. I will find someone to complain to – there should be a warning before completing the update. I am not happy.

hi dude
who eveeeeeeeeer you are
but i am telling you the truth
your are awesome, man
it works for me
you are my lifesaver
i reallyyyyyy salute you

Your tip just worked perfectly…i use my iPhone for work pourposes and you just saved my ASS!!!!

I thank you!

When I performed Itunes Manual Sync with my Iphone 3G, version 3.0 software, NO CONTACTS are Visible on my Iphone except:

1. Favorites (under phone)
2. If I search any name in my previously visible contact list using the Universal Search feature for phone, notes, calendar (Page 1 of Apps), the search will find the contact.

Thus the contacts are on the iPhone and also on MobileMe (Me.com) but not visible on my iPhone.

I tried Resetting my iPhone to Original settings and then Run Restore to my previous backup. No luck.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Todd Fladen
The Fladen Eye Center

I tried it and it worked. Thanks alot.

OH MY GOD!!!!! I was actually sitting here in tears wondering how it happened and what to do…. you have officially saved me from police action…had it not been 2am I would be in the throws of a full blown verbal attack on apple.

Complete normality has been restored and I have you to thank.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you

I just synced my iphone from the backup and all the contacts were restored..thanks~~

Yes, this fix works great!!!!!!

brilliant. simple but genius

Didnt work for me , i don”t find any backup where you said , any tips for that Please ? :S

It worked – thanks to the original poster!!!

Man ur every bit worth a big hug !!ur awesome !worked like a charm !!!
really helpful !
i think with Apple we need to look a lil further with finding solutions , coz its all in there!
thx alot !

I did this to create a backup of my contacts, and that is why I'm here now.
When it synced with my windows address book, it wiped out all my iphone contacts except 7 of them. I don't know why it kept those seven, but I am very upset at losing all my other contact info.

hey does this take long tym? apprx hw much tym.. m tryng but it alwats shows restore in progress..

Sweet!!!
TGIW!!! Thanks a lot and BTW they should put this information in apple's website 'cause it took me so long to find this information.

You save me more than 200 contacts.

Thanks a lot.

You can just right click the eject button and choose to restore from backup.

Yeah.. didnt work for me… dont know why but apparently the back up was corrupt or something ?
Oh well.. Its kinda lame though.. I have contacts from overseas that I have no way of contacting now… Not sure what I can do about that..

I have Exactly the same problem! Help us! plz

ok great and generous genius…bless ya! you have saved my three weeks of painful search please link this page to dev team?

how to restore contacts from a previous date

I guess if you have not backed up before and lost the contact info, you can't get it back?
I was trying to back up without reading the itune help page. I did something within itune. Next thing I found was all my contacts were gone. Is there any way to get them back?
Please advise.

Unhappy

Thanks mate…………………Ur formula works……………

I saved all my contactssssss

Ur Awsomeeee .. I luv you

Thankssssssxxx