Spanners - Digital Web and Graphic Design

Click here to go straight to the solution. If you'd like to know how I got here and how I fixed it, read on.

So the following day, I got on my computer and synced my iPhone again.

Contacts were still blank.

I did a Restore.

Contacts still blank.

I started panicking a little.

I read some forum posts about people who said their iPhone contacts were blank but Mac Address Book was still populated with their contacts.

So I checked Address Book.

All Contacts = No Cards Selected. Contacts were gone.

I started panicking a little more.

My next move was to check iTunes and see if I can restore my iPhone to a date before last Friday. Turns out the only backup I have is September 2010. Eight months ago!

I was a little pissed at this, as every time I sync my iPhone it says it's backing up. But I only had the backup from the restore I did first and then this one in September 2010. In order to create a backup for restore you need to do a full restore in iTunes, and select Yes to creating a backup.

Knowing full well that I would not restore any contacts I have added between now and September 2010, I did the restore from backup.

After about 30 mins, the restore is finished. I checked the contacts. They're back!

In addition, my iPhone had restored back to it's former self back in September 2010. For example, all the apps I'd deleted were back (none of my new apps are on there any more) and my alarm sound and times had reverted.

But at least I'd recovered the majority of my contacts.

Next move: get the contacts back into Address Book.

A simple sync didn't work. Even on iTunes, in the Info tab with Sync Address Book Contacts ticked and All Contacts selected, Address Book on the Mac was still blank.

I then made the mistake of ticking Replace Information on this iPhone => Contacts. That just wiped my Contacts on the iPhone again.

I restored the iPhone back to September 2010 (another 30 mins).

After some more forum reading I found a post about getting your contacts on your iPhone into a blank Address Book. The key thing was to make sure there was at least one contact in Address Book. So I create a contact with my details in there and I synced.

SUCCESS!

My Address Book on the Mac was populated with all the contacts from my iPhone.

Now at this stage I could have gone into the Apps tab on iTunes, unticked and re-ticked all of the apps I wanted on the iPhone, reset the alarms and any other settings I had changed since September, but I had a better idea.

When I did the very first restore, I made a backup of the iPhone. Granted that the contacts were missing, but all of my iPhone settings, apps, and more importantly my photos, were still intact.

So the plan was to make a backup of all of my contacts from Address Book, which I had just re-imported from the September backup, restore the iPhone to the latest backup, and if needed, re-import the contacts back into Address Book if this restore deletes them from the iPhone and/or Address Book.

I even took another step: exported a group vCard from Address Book and uploaded it to my Google Contacts, just to be safe.

I hit the restore button one last time. Another 20 mins later my phone was restored to the latest backup.

In addition, the contacts that I had moved into Address Book remained in the iPhone. The backup didn't wipe them off again.

So all-in-all I think this is the best solution I could come up, combining my September backup's Address Book contacts with the most recent configuration of my iPhone and iTunes.

So if this has happened to you, if you have somehow lost all your contacts in your iPhone and Address Book, complete the following.

1. Try a normal sync of your iPhone with your iTunes
2. If that doesn't work, click the Restore button.
3. IMPORTANT! When iTunes asks you if you want to create a backup, click YES! This is the MOST IMPORTANT STEP!
4. Restore your iPhone with the latest backup you have in iTunes that is dated before you noticed your contacts were gone. This will take anywhere from 10-45mins, depending on how much data, music, photos, apps, video etc. you have on your phone.
5. If you're contacts are back on your iPhone, go to step 10. If you're contacts still haven't returned, re-attach your iPhone to iTunes and click restore again.
6. IMPORTANT! You DO NOT want to click Yes to creating another backup of your phone, so when it asks you if you want to create a backup, click No.
7. Select a backup that is older than the one you chose previously.
8. Once the restore is complete (another 10-45mins) check your contacts again.
9. If your contacts are back proceed to the next step. If not, keep restoring older backups until your contacts return. Eventually you should find a backup that has your contacts stored in it and re-uploaded to your iPhone.
10. At this point your contacts are on your iPhone but not in Address Book. To get them to sync across to Address Book, open Address Book (which should still be blank) and create one contact. Either create your own contact or create a fake contact.
11. With you're iPhone attached to iTunes, select your iPhone and under the Info tab, make sure that Sync Address Book Contacts is ticked.
12. Sync your iPhone and iTunes and when it's finished, check Address Book. You're contacts will have synced across.
13. IMPORTANT! With Address Book selected, go to File => Export => Address Book Archive... and save a backup.
14. IMPORTANT! Again, go File => Export => Export Group vCard and save the file. You now have two different backups of your contacts.
15. Now we have to restore your iPhone back to its latest configuration, including photos, apps etc. Attached your iPhone to iTunes and click Restore.
16. Again, don't make a new backup. Click No when it asks about backing up.
17. Now select the latest backup available (the backup you created in step 3). Again, should take about 10-45mins.
18. Once it's completed, you're iPhone will be back to it's latest configuration with the latest set of contacts available from your iPhone backups. If you're contacts are still missing, open Address Book.
19. Choose File => Import and select the Address Book Archive you create in step 13.
20. Attach your iPhone to iTunes, check the Info tab again to make sure Sync Address Book Contacts is ticked, and sync.

You've got your contacts. At the very least you'll have the latest backup of your contacts, back on your phone and back in Address Book.

Leave me a comment if this happened to you or you used my solution.

Let me know how you go or if you have any feedback (or a better solution).