How to restore contacts on your phone. Recovering contacts on Android. discussions about “4 proven ways to recover deleted contacts on an Android phone”

It may occur after a complete formatting, after accidental deletion of some information, or due to the consequences of viruses. Although, no matter what the reason for the data loss was, the process of restoring contacts does not change.

Recovering contacts via Gmail

Most of them running on Android OS have a well-functioning mechanism for synchronizing data with Gmail account ohm So, to restore your contact list, first you need to log into your Google account. In the upper left corner there is a “Gmail” button, you need to click it and then select “Contacts”. After this, you need to click the “Advanced” button (located above the contact list) and select “Restore contacts”.

Then you need to specify the date on which you want to restore contacts (a week ago, a month ago, you can even specify 10 minutes ago or an hour ago). In case you suddenly have to cancel this procedure, you need to remember the time when the contact list began. Next, you need to start the recovery procedure using the “Restore” button and when the rollback is complete, a corresponding message will appear at the top of the screen.

You can cancel the restore procedure at any time by clicking the “Cancel” button, which is located in the yellow alert at the top of the screen. If there is no such button, you can restore contacts again - to do this you will need to specify the time before the start of the restoration procedure.

If this does not help, you need to check whether the contacts were actually synchronized with the Gmail account (Settings - Accounts - Contacts). You can also try synchronizing contacts on your phone, go to your contact book and try data recovery.

If this also does not help, you can also try deleting and adding your Gmail account again in the phone settings. Most often, problems with recovery occur if the contacts were saved on a SIM card or on the phone, and not as Gmail contacts.

Recovering contacts through applications

You can also restore contacts on Android using special applications. For example, Super Backup Pro. After installing the application, you need to launch it and select “Backup”. After this, a new window will appear with the name of the contact backup copy, and the location where it will be saved will be indicated in orange. this file. After clicking the “OK” button, contacts will be restored. Besides, this program knows how to send backup copy by e-mail.

While cleaning the Android device from unnecessary files and programs no longer need to worry about . If you accidentally deleted someone's important number from phone book or deleted the address from the list Gmail, you can easily get them back... on one condition.

My story today will be about how to restore contacts on Android and what needs to be done in advance so as not to lose this opportunity.

Recovering your Gmail address book

I have no doubt that you, like every owner of an Android phone or tablet, have an account Google entry, linked to @gmail.com. Google's email service automatically reserves user address books for up to 30 days. Accordingly, contact information that was entered into the book during this period can be restored without problems.

To restore email addresses, open in your browser home page Google and log into the account that is linked to the phone: click the " Entrance» on the right side top panel site and enter the gmail.com email address along with the password in the appropriate fields. Next, open the applications section (the button next to logging in to your account) and select “ Mail».

In the mail application window, click on the button “ Gmail" and select " Contacts».

In the menu that opens next, click " Restore contacts».

In the list " Restore as of» Specify the time at which the address book was saved: 10 minutes ago, 1 hour ago, yesterday, last week, or on a random day and hour. Click the confirmation button.

All is ready.

We restore the phone book and other contact information

Attention! So that you have the opportunity to restore accidentally deleted numbers from the phone book and contact listGoogle+ (if you use it), you must activate the account synchronization function on your phone in advance. After that you won't even be afraidhardreset, since everything you need will be saved in a backup copy on the serverGoogle.

To synchronize your account on your Android device with Google servers, open the " Options", go to the section " Accounts and Sync", select your @gmail.com account and move the "on/off" slider to the " position Included».

To sync selected data, for example, only contacts from your phone book and Google+, tap " Account @gmail.com" and mark what you need inside the section.

To restore phone numbers and everything else (of course, after synchronization), launch through the main page of the site Google app « Contacts" On the menu " All contacts» click « More" And " Restore».

Next, as in the case of the Gmail address book, indicate the time when the backup was created and click confirm.

Copying the phone book from the SIM card

If the event that caused the need for recovery occurred before you enabled synchronization, you can transfer lost data to your phone from other people's SIM cards. For this:

  • Insert the card into your device and launch the Android application " Contacts».

  • When it opens, tap the main menu button (in the form of three squares in the top panel on the right) and select the command “ Import Export».

  • Mark the source - the SIM card on which the required numbers are stored.

  • Next, mark the new save location - the memory of your phone or tablet (in my example - Tablet).

  • Check the boxes next to the numbers you are interested in and click the " Copy"(circled with a white frame in the screenshot). After that, they will appear in the phone book of your device.

Another the right way“remember” the numbers of people with whom you recently called - take them from the operator cellular communications a printout of your call details.

Third-party contact recovery utilities

There are many programs designed to recover deleted files and other information from mobile gadgets. With their help, it is possible to recover lost phone book entries quite often, but, unfortunately, not always.

It is almost impossible to imagine life without a mobile device nowadays. They provide the opportunity to constantly be in touch, regardless of any distance. Unfortunately, sometimes due to a fatal accident, carelessness or other reasons, the connection may be broken. It is not at all because the phone was lost; if you wish and have a certain amount of money, you can buy it at a specialized trading establishment. The connection may be interrupted if contacts are lost. It’s good if there are other persons through whom you can exchange information about the loss and provide your phone number.

Ways to recover contacts on Android.

In many cases, such an opportunity simply does not exist, and due to loss, they are lost. The bad thing is that many users still do not know that the loss is not always irrevocable. There are ways to fix the problem. It is for this reason that we recommend that both those who have already encountered such a problem and those who have everything in order with their mobile device study very useful information on how to restore everything.

Most owners of mobile devices take care in advance to ensure that contacts do not disappear without a trace. The developers offer several options for solving this problem. However, some users are in no hurry to use them or remember this when they had to face the problem face to face. If you also fell into such a “trap”, all contact information has disappeared, do not immediately start panicking. At this moment it is useful for you to have a “fresh” head, this will allow you to calmly complete everything necessary actions, providing high results. We will help you solve the problem and list all existing options. All you have to do is choose one most acceptable option or try all the methods in search of the one that will be most effective.

Reasons for missing contacts

If your contacts on Android suddenly disappeared, before you start delving into the question of how to restore them, we recommend that you figure out why they disappeared. Nothing just happens; something must have caused it. Having found out the reason, it will not only be easier to find a way to restore, but it will also be possible to prevent the situation in the future due to which contacts are lost. A separate number from the phone book may disappear due to the inattention of the user himself, who accidentally clicked the delete request. There is no need to doubt that all contacts will disappear after this, which is done by the owners of mobile devices in the event of any serious technical glitches. Resetting settings is not the only reason. If your contacts have disappeared, try to remember what happened to your mobile device the day before. The reasons for such a failure may be:

  • blows, falls;
  • visiting some Internet pages that contain tools that launch the process of cleaning the phone book;
  • trying to synchronize with @gmail.com.

The problem may arise if the phone's memory is excessively full, so it is recommended to transfer the footage to other media from time to time. It is also important to know that sometimes contacts do not disappear anywhere, they just become hidden. Of course, it is difficult to detect them in the usual way, because in this case you need to make changes to the settings aimed at displaying hidden data. In this case, if your phone book was simply hidden, you will quickly find it. Don't forget to switch your phone book to normal mode. Unfortunately, in some cases, it is still not possible to determine the cause of a failure even after conducting a full analysis of all actions taken the day before.

Recovery

Having found out the reason why such an unpleasant situation happened, you can move on to the next stage, which involves restoring lost contacts on Android. Of course, for this you will initially have to not just immerse yourself in the process of processing information, how to recover deleted contacts on Android, but thoroughly study everything existing methods. Most users strive to recover their lost contact list through Google. Indeed, this method is not only widespread, but also incredibly effective. However, in order to effectively resolve this issue, it is important that the phone book synchronization process is enabled before the problem occurs.

Fortunately, in most cases this is exactly what happens, since synchronization is enabled in smartphones by default, unless the owners themselves overdid it and turned it off in pursuit of some personal goals. Also, to restore your contact list through a Google account, you need to remember your account login information. It would be sad if you simply forgot them. Try to restore it using the appropriate tools on the Google website itself. If all of the above conditions are met, then proceed to the next steps:

  • go to the website https://contacts.google.com/ (you can use both a PC and a phone);
  • enter your account password and login;
  • if the phone book has not been deleted, and you want to move it to new phone, since the old one was lost, then you will only need to run a re-sync;
  • if contacts on Android are missing, but another 30 days have not passed since they were deleted, then go to “More”, select the “Undo changes” option, if the Google version is outdated, then you need to select “Restore contacts”;
  • Since the cancellation of changes made is carried out taking into account the time of the expected deletion of contacts, it is necessary to indicate for what time the rollback should be made.

If you restored contacts using Gmail on PC, you need to save the contacts file and transfer it to your mobile device. Finally, all that remains is to launch the “Import” process in the “Contacts” section.

Sometimes it is much easier for owners of mobile devices to restore contacts not through the capabilities Google clouds, but via an SD card. Many users, while using the device, export the contacts.vcf file to an SD card, but then forget about this action. It would be a good idea to view everything saved on the SD card, and if you find a backup copy of your contacts, start the import process. You can contact the operator mobile services, who can provide a statement of phone number, which will indicate incoming and outgoing calls. However, this method is not practical enough because a printout of calls is provided, but it only shows phone numbers without indicating the names of their owners.

Also, the contact list can be restored via a SIM card. It is recommended to enter the Contacts program, which is installed on all Android devices. In the window that opens, you will easily find the “Import/Export” section. After the program asks you to indicate the source from which to copy contacts, you need to specify the SIM card, and then the location where you would like to save the contacts from the phone book. Wait a little, a list of contacts will open on the screen, check the checkbox next to the contacts that you would like to restore. This method is suitable for all Androids, but, unfortunately, not all numbers can be restored, but only those that were recorded on the SIM card.

Third-party contact recovery utilities

If the previous methods did not fully satisfy you, then you can use special programs, the functional purpose of which is to restore lost information, despite the presence of a backup copy, Google account and other additional conditions. A utility such as iSkysoft Android Data Recovery is considered an excellent recovery application. If you use it, then the question of which program is best to recover deleted contacts will no longer arise. So, first you need to download the installation file to your computer, then install this program on your PC. Now, using a USB cable, you need to connect the Android, on which such a “misfortune” as the loss of contact information happened. The computer will ask you in which mode to connect; you need to select “USB Debugging”.

We launch the iSkysoft Android Data Recovery program, in the main window we note what specific data we want to recover. In our case, we check the checkbox next to “Contacts”. We start the scanning process by pressing the “Next” key and wait for the process to complete. After this the program in automatic mode will carry out the recovery process and create a list of contacts that it can restore. The Android owner will need to select those contacts that he would like to return to the phone book; if necessary, you can select absolutely the entire list to get the phone book in the same volume as before deletion. Next, you should click the “Recovery” button, confirming your intentions regarding this process, and just wait for successful completion.

iSkysoft Android Data Recovery is not the only program that can restore contacts. You can take advantage of other offers from developers. The best, according to many Android owners who have already encountered and solved such problems, are:

  • GT Recovery;
  • Restore Contacts;
  • Remote Contacts;
  • Restoring contacts;
  • Deleted Contacts Recovery.

There are others useful utilities, however, most of them are paid.

So, if you lose your contact information, do not panic, try to think sensibly, based on our recommendations. Do not despair if some method does not bring the expected “fruits”. Try other solutions to the problem. The one who acts will always achieve what he wants.

Unintentional user actions, system failure, virus attack, as well as a number of other reasons can lead to loss important information located on the phone. And if music or video can be re-downloaded to the device, then deleted numbers from the phone book cannot be returned in this way. Fortunately, the Android OS developers took care of the safety of our data and provided several effective ways their resuscitation. Let's look at how to restore contacts on Android if they were accidentally deleted.

Methods for restoring the phone book

To get back accidentally erased contacts to Android, you can use one of the following methods:

  1. Google cloud service;
  2. Built-in capabilities of the Android system;
  3. Additional software.

Every Android device can be linked to Google services. This is not necessary, but without such a link you will not be able to download applications from the Play Market, store information on cloud storage, or work with Google Play and much more.

The Gmail mail service synchronizes with the phone book and copies its contents to cloud storage. And even if you accidentally deleted your phone number, you can return it within 30 days. This is how much information is stored on Google.

To restore deleted contacts on Android from using Google, necessary:

After completing these steps and synchronizing again, the deleted numbers should appear on your phone.

If the contacts disappeared later on the gadget and it has not yet been synchronized with Google, to resuscitate the numbers you will need to do the following:


Restoring contacts using this method is only possible if synchronization has been activated on the mobile device. It turns on as follows:


Now, at certain intervals, the phone will synchronize with Google and record the required user information in the virtual storage. If necessary, it can be restored at any time.

Using Android's built-in capabilities to recover lost contacts

If, due to lack of synchronization, you cannot restore your phone book through Google services, try doing this using the standard “Import/Export” function:


This method allows you to revive not the entire list of contacts on Android, but only those that were recorded on the SIM card. To be able to return all numbers, take the time to periodically save the phone book in a .vcf file. This can be done using the same Import/Export function.

Recovering numbers from the phone book using additional software

When considering how to recover deleted contacts, you should not ignore third-party software, designed specifically for resuscitating user data. Such applications do not require synchronization with Google and a previously saved copy of the phone book. However, they show high efficiency only in cases where the numbers have disappeared recently, and no new information has been recorded on the phone since the disappearance.

Mobile devices under Android control can store a wide variety of data in their memory, ranging from video captured on camera to applications. Contacts are also stored in the phone's memory or on the SIM card inserted into it - very important data, the loss of which can be more than just an unpleasant event for the user. By the way, sometimes you have to face such trouble.

Contacts can be deleted due to negligence by the user himself, when updating the operating system, when resetting to factory settings, during a crash or a virus attack in the end. If you have a backup copy of your contacts saved to a memory card or other device (usually ) there is not much to worry about, because the data can always be restored. It’s a different matter when you never bothered to create a backup in time, in which case there is a risk of losing them forever. However, it is not at all a fact that the situation will be so hopeless.

So what should you do if your contacts on Android are missing and you need to restore them? The developers foresaw this scenario and built it into operating system the ability to restore lost contacts. Here are a few ways to get your Contacts app data back, maybe one of them will help you too.

Recovering contacts using a Google account

If your phone is linked to a Google account, then all available on mobile device contacts should automatically synchronize with this service, therefore, you can restore contacts on Android through your Google account. The recovery procedure using the service is the same on all devices (you can use a computer). Go to address contacts.google.com and log in using your Google username and password. If your contacts are saved, you will see them immediately. In this case, select the “More” - “Export” option in the menu, and then set the switch to the “Google CSV” or “vCard” position.

Transfer saved CSV file or VCF (vCard) to your phone, open the “Contacts” application, select “Import/Export” from the menu and specify the path to the export file (or the phone itself will find the required file).

If your Contacts application does not support working with the CSV format (most likely this will be the case), and you used it when uploading, then convert the file to VCF using the program CSV to VCARD by downloading it from the official website csvtovcard.com/index.html.

In the event that the contact list in Google service is empty, select the “Cancel changes” option from the menu (in the old interface it will be called “Restore contacts”), specify the period for restoration and confirm the operation.

If data recovery is successful, synchronize your phone with your Google account again or transfer contacts to it manually, as described above.

If you have a Samsung phone

Usage cloud services, in particular Google account – reliable way restore contacts on Android after resetting settings, deleting address book entries and other occasions; other methods, alas, are not so effective. If you have a Samsung phone, check whether your device uses cloud synchronization with Samsung Cloud. If yes, you can restore contacts from there. Go to the "Cloud and Accounts", select " Samsung account", click on entry Email, call up the menu and select “Delete account” from it.

After removing the link, reboot your device and connect your account again. The data will be synchronized. If this does not happen right away, click the "Sync" button. Before doing this, it is advisable to make sure that all addresses are displayed in the phone book. To do this, open “Contacts”, go to the application settings and select the “All contacts” option in the “Show contacts” section.

This is a completely working way to restore contacts on Android after deletion, but again subject to synchronization.

Finding lost contacts in instant messengers

Okay, but how to get back deleted contacts on Android if cloud synchronization was not used? Perhaps you have some messengers installed on your phone, say, Viber or Telegram. In this case, contacts can be restored from specified programs, usually automatically recording telephone data books android to their databases. Unfortunately, there is no adequate way to export information from these applications to Contacts, unless you transfer it manually. If you have Viber, you can try using the “Export Contacts Of Viber” application by downloading it from Google Play.

Using third party utilities

If you consider yourself an advanced user, it makes sense to try your luck with third-party specialized utilities. For example, let's see how to recover deleted contacts on your phone using the program iSkysoft Android Data Recovery. After installing the application on your computer and allowing USB debugging on your phone, connect the gadget to your PC and launch Android Data Recovery.

Then check the boxes for the items you need, in this case “Contacts”, select the first scanning mode and start the search procedure.

Upon completion of the procedure (it will take some time), a sorted list of files will appear in the program window. You need "Contacts". Mark the category with a bird and click “Recover”.

However, you must be aware that neither iSkysoft Android Data Recovery nor any other utility guarantees 100% success in recovering deleted data, but the sooner you start the procedure, the greater the chance you will have of returning at least some of the missing contacts.

The program mentioned above is far from the only one of its kind, you can also try the following tools instead:

  • GT Recovery
  • Android Data Recovery
  • Tenorshare Android Data Recovery
  • EaseUS Mobisaver
  • 7-Data Android Recovery
  • Data Doctor Recovery SIM Card

Most of these applications have a similar operating algorithm, so we will not dwell on their use in detail. Like the iSkysoft utility, they allow you to rescue data that was lost recently. For example, you accidentally deleted contacts on Android and immediately started looking for a way to restore them. In this case, these tools will probably help you achieve what you want.

Extracting contacts from a SQL database

If you have and are not new to IT, you can try to extract contacts from a database file contacts2.db, provided that this database is old. To do this, use the application Root Explorer copy the directory /data/data/android.providers.contacts/databases to the memory card and transfer the databases folder to the PC. Next, open the contacts2.db file stored in it with the plugin Firefox addon of SQLite manager or its analogue compatible with new versions of Firefox and read contacts.

Contacting the operator

If everything is so bad and nothing helps, you should contact your operator mobile communications to receive details of calls and SMS messages. Of course, most of the data will remain lost, you will receive only digital numbers without any names, but it’s still better than nothing at all. Finally, you can take the device to service center in the hope that the specialists will still be able to extract something from it, but this will already cost you money.

At this point, we will consider that we have dealt with the topic of how to restore contacts on Android. To summarize all that has been said, we note that the only reliable, effective and correct method of recovery is to use a backup created in advance and saved to an external storage device, everything else except cloud synchronization, is a big question. Therefore, if you have not yet made a local backup of your contacts, create it right now, so that later, if something happens, you do not torment yourself with useless accusations of carelessness.