HELP: contacts disappeared from iphone 4/address book on computer

my old iphone 4 had a problem so I got a new one.. the old one was backed up just about a week ago. I tried to sync my new phone today and everything synced except my contacts - not only that but my contacts have disappeared from my address book/itunes.
How could everything else have backed up just fine but not my contacts... are they recoverable?

Argh!  Why doesn't Apple warn you about known iOS-to-OS conflicts before you install a new one?  I too am now (unhappily) running iOS 6 on my iPhone 3GS, and still Snow Leopard on my MacBook Pro.  If I upgrade my MacBook OS to Lion or Mt Lion, I will have some software that won't run anymore, & will have to buy upgrades -- the reason I've held off. Guess I'll have to bite the bullet.
The info about the iPhone Mail-etc sync setting is also useful.  I do have iCloud for the phone though not for the Mac. 
Here's the problem now:
In trying to solve my issue of new contact info not syncing in either direction, I went into iTunes on the Mac, the Info tab, and checked the sync box for Address Book, even though there was a warning my contacts might be duplicated because of iCloud backups.  This was a phone/Mac sync, not phone/iCloud.  (I alternate them so I'm covered.)  I have 4200+ contacts.  Guess what?  Most of 'em duplicated on the iPhone. The 2 questions now are: 
- is there a more efficient way to remove the duplicates from the iPhone than doing select-edit-scroll down-delete for every one?
- do I dare do any backing up to iCloud with these duplicates on the phone, or will I end up with quadruplicates?
Thanks very much!  BTW, how do you enter a "This helped me" or "solved my problem" score?  I'm only seeing how to Like a reply.

Similar Messages

  • How do i import contacts from iPhone to address book?

    how do i import contacts from iphone to address book?

    Ok, I knew it was a long shot.  The merge prompt normally is only available when you first sync your device.  I'm not sure how things got out of sync in the first place, but you may have to manually delete the contacts from your phone that you don't want there at this point.  I would try adding a new contact on your phone followed by sync to confirm that it's picking up new contacts though.
    Unfortunately I need to go now, so if you're still having problems I suggest your start a new post in the forum to see if someone else can help.  Good luck!

  • Unable to sync contacts from iPhone to Address Book...works the other way

    I am unable to have changes on my iPhone reflect in my Mac's address book. For example, I would delete a contact on the iphone, but it stays there in the Mac's address book after sync. The worst part is that now on subsequent syncs, the contact is never added back to the phone or deleted from the computer. I am able to create as many contacts as I want on the phone and sync them to the address book, but just not delete modify them.
    Creating/deleting contacts in the address book works.
    So far, I have tried:
    1. Resetting the sync history.
    2. Replacing all my iPhone contacts with those in address book.
    3. Unselecting and reselecting sync contacts from iTunes.
    4. Archiving my address book, deleting everything in it, syncing, and then repopulating it.
    5. Restoring my iPhone.
    None of this has worked, and I am close to pulling my hair out. I just fixed issues with the new Safari bookmarks sync, and now this. Can anyone please help me fix this issue? Any help would be appreciated.
    This is what my console looks like:
    3/24/08 12:43:39 AM [0x0-0x11011].com.apple.iTunesHelper[143] InvalidHostID
    3/24/08 12:43:39 AM [0x0-0xaa0aa].com.apple.iTunes[1121] InvalidHostID
    3/24/08 12:44:48 AM [0x0-0xaa0aa].com.apple.iTunes[1121] Child: Can't read length for data
    3/24/08 12:44:48 AM [0x0-0xaa0aa].com.apple.iTunes[1121] Child: NULL command dict read, exiting...
    3/24/08 12:44:48 AM [0x0-0xaa0aa].com.apple.iTunes[1121] Created child to sync device with pid 1146...
    3/24/08 12:45:00 AM [0x0-0xaa0aa].com.apple.iTunes[1121] Sending final status from child helper tool back to parent...
    3/24/08 12:45:51 AM [0x0-0xaa0aa].com.apple.iTunes[1121] Created child to sync device with pid 1153...
    3/24/08 12:45:58 AM [0x0-0xaa0aa].com.apple.iTunes[1121] Sending final status from child helper tool back to parent...
    Thanks.
    PS: Restoring my iPhone messed up the name in iTunes. Any way to get back the name I had earlier?
    Message was edited by: Saurabh Garg
    Message was edited by: Saurabh Garg

    Thanks for the idea of looking at the Console. I've created new contacts on my MacBook and my iPhone, but neither is syncing to the other, in fact a new contact group I created in Address Book doesn't even show up in the list of groups in the Contacts sync window in iTunes. Here's what the Console says every time I sync:
    3/28/08 2:45:54 AM AddressBookSync[315] AddressBookSync (client id: com.apple.AddressBook) error: Exception running AddressBookSync: CoreData could not fulfill a fault for '0x1a02fc0 <x-coredata://2123D5A6-CBBA-4900-B49B-0DDF0F8195A8/ABCDPostalAddress/p68>'
    3/28/08 2:45:54 AM com.apple.syncservices.SyncServer[176] 2008-03-28 02:45:54.040 AddressBookSync[315:10b] AddressBookSync (client id: com.apple.AddressBook) error: Exception running AddressBookSync: CoreData could not fulfill a fault for '0x1a02fc0 <x-coredata://2123D5A6-CBBA-4900-B49B-0DDF0F8195A8/ABCDPostalAddress/p68>'

  • How can i copy my contact from iphone to address book

    how can i copy my contact from iphone to address book

    When connection your iPhone to iTunes, go to the "info"-tab (I think it's called), and check the box "Sync contacts from Address Book". This should do the job.
    Cheers

  • Contact disappeared from iPhone but not deleted from Address Book on sync

    FYI, I have an iPhone 3G running iOS 4.2 (the latest), and I have never so much as thought about MobileMe.
    Until two days ago, I have had no reason to doubt that my iPhone's Contact list is the same as my MacBook's Address Book list. I now have no confidence that the same info. exists in both: I know for sure that at least one contact long present in both has disappeared from the iPhone, yet syncing all contacts neither returns it to the iPhone nor deletes it from Address Book! I need help troubleshooting this contact as well as verifying that there aren't other similar anomalies corrupting my data, hopefully without manually comparing all 685 entries...
    Two days ago, a certain number, let's call it (310) 555-5555, popped up in my recents list as a missed call and in my visual voicemail. When I listened to the voicemail, I discovered that (310) 555-5555 was Jane Smith. I remembered entering Jane Smith several months ago, so I thought hmmm, does she have a second number? I tried to add (310) 555-5555 to an existing entry, only to find my iPhone had no entry for Jane Smith anymore at all! I did not delete her myself, and I'm not aware of any 3rd-party app that ought to have affected the entry. I haven't called Jane Smith or (310) 555-5555 in quite some time, so I have no idea how long the entry may have been missing. I searched the whole phone (left of the first home screen)
    At the next opportunity, I looked in Address Book on my laptop, and indeed found the expected entry for Jane Smith, (310) 555-5555. I have no idea how she disappeared from my iPhone -- did I or some third-party program delete her? Or did it happen through some sync issue? -- but I naturally worried that when I next synced, the deletion would sync, too, and I would lose the Address Book entry, leaving me without Jane Smith's number at all.
    Such an event would defeat the entire purpose of backing up my phone contacts to my computer; I just moved to iPhone this spring after being a Palm user since 1997, and the idea that iPhone might not be reliably syncing my contacts is frankly terrifying. I checked and saw that my Address Book listed 685 contacts to iPhone Contacts's 684, so I decided to risk a sync in hopes that maybe I had caused a one-off deletion. I wrote down Jane Smith (310) 555-5555 just in case and hit sync.
    The results of the sync and my subsequent troubleshooting have seriously undermined my confidence in the fidelity of the sync process. The first time, nothing changed--I still had 684 iPhone, no Jane Smith, and 685 Address Book, including Jane Smith.
    Thanks in advance for any assistance.
    Message was edited by: Lindsey Worth

    Before conecting your phone, open iTunes on your computer and go to Preferences, on the Devices tab check "Prevent...from syncing automatically".  Now connect your phone and when it appears in iTunes on the left sidebar click on its name.  Go to the Info tab and confirm than your have checked Sync Contacts with Address Book.  Now further down on the Info tab under Advanced>Replace information on this iPhone check Contacts.  Click Apply and sync your phone.  This will replace the contacts on your phone with the contacts in Address Book.  (When complete you can go back to iTunes preferences and uncheck "Prevent..." to re-establish automatic syncing if your prefer this.)

  • Need help syncing contacts FROM iPhone to Address book

    I'm trying to help my dad out here. He's got about 300 contacts on his iPhone that he wants to transfer onto his computer so he can have a saved/printed copy of them. I've tried to set the contacts to sync in iTunes, but it only resulted in wiping all the contacts off of the phone, which causes me to waste an hour restoring the iPhone from backup so he doesn't kill me -_____- I don't care about copying contacts from Address book to his phone, just from his phone to Address book. How do I do this?

    I have a similar problem which should be easily fixed with the steps described but those are not working. I just got a iPhone 4GS and im trying to take the contacts off of my 3GS and onto my adress book so I can sync the 4GS with adress book and get all my contacts. I created the "dummy contact" on adress book and have tried to sync my phone a couple of times but it doesnt work. it just syncs the dummy contact onto my 3gs but doesnt transfer the contacts from my 3gs onto the adress book on the computer. it also doesnt give me the option to "merge". the kicker to this is that at the bottom of the "sync contacts with adress book tab" on itunes it tells me that my contacts are "being synced with mobileme over the air" when mobileme DOESNT EVEN EXIST ANYMORE.... help please! thank you

  • Copy contacts from iPhone to Address Book in Outlook

    Hi there,
    I'm asking to see whether it's possible to copy contacts from an iPhone to the Address Book in Outlook, reason why I ask is that I am trying to help my Managing Director with his wife's Outlook issue as described in the following link http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-outlook/outlook-cont acts-wont-display-in-address-book/e7c919cd-3e68-4cab-9b21-4e0080827e21?tm=142262 7591302, if so please could you either instruct me on how to do this or to point me to some references on how to go about this.
    Kind regards,
    RocknRollTim

    I have the same problem, sort of. When syncing iPhone with Windows Address Book, address entries that have more than one email address, get synced with only one email address. My only work around was to switch syncing address books from Windows Address Book to Outlook 2003. Now that iTunes 4 had messed up iPhone syncs with Outlook 2003's I've done one final sync with Windows Address Book, turn off the sync address feature in the sync window, and manually updated my address entries manually on the iPhone. I hope that Apple fixes this issue with Outlook 2003 soon, cause this is not why I shelled out $599 for a Treo upgrade!

  • Sync added contacts from iPhone to Address Book

    As I am out and about I add new contacts on my iPhone. But when I sync with my Mac they are ignored. This contrasts with other mobile phone suppliers who do a 'sync merge' as standard updating both the phone and PC with added and amended contacts since the last sync. How can I get iTunes to execute this most basic of functions?

    I posted earlier today, asking how to get my contacts to sync both ways, or IF they can sync both ways, but so far, no one has replied. I updated my contacts on my imac (10.6.7) and when I try and sync my iphone4, it tells me if I go forward with the sync, it will effect at least 25% of my contacts on my computer, so the iphone, with the older contacts, is going to overwrite those in my address book on my mac. 
    I have been searching other posts to see if I can find the answer, and found this post here.  So I am wondering if resetting the sync history would help me?  I went to isync and clicked on it but the message is a bit unclear, to me anyway ;-)   It sounds like resetting the isync history will cause me to loose some information?  Can you clarify?  Or help me sort out how to get the updated contacts from my mac's address book into contacts on my iphone4?
    m

  • Contacts disappear from iPhone and then reappear

    Contacts disappear on my iPhone but are still on my Mac Mini.  When I enter them again on the iPhone they magically reappear.  Why is this happening?

    I synced my iPhone today and lost all contacts on the iPhone and my iMac address book. My iCal is still working, though. I spent an hour on the phone with an Apple Care tech and I was unable to recover anything. We even checked my old 20 gig 2nd generation iPod by going to "disk mode" but I didn't have any contact data stored in it. Is there a "disk mode" for the iPhone?
    I didn't back up my contacts in Address Book (go to File - Back Up Address Book) so I know I'm out of luck and that I should probably go get Leopard for the "Time Machine" application. At least Apple gets to make some more $ off me.

  • All Contacts disappear from iPhone -- temporarily

    I have a recurring problem with my iPhone which occurred under 3.0 and now under 3.1, and even after a "restore as new phone" and replacement of the SIM card: occasionally, I'll go into the iPhone Contacts app and it will be empty -- no contacts at all, even if they were there minutes earlier. They eventually reappear after a reboot (without my doing any kind of "restore" -- I sync my contacts wirelessly over MobileMe). Yesterday, for example, I opened up my Contacts app to make a call; the contacts were all there, and I tapped on a particular contact to call him, and instead of his contact details being displayed, all my contacts disappeared. i rebooted and they reappeared.
    I have asked about this at the Genius Bar and the Genius said it was happening because I was in an area with no cell signal, and that since I sync wirelessly with MobileMe, my contacts will disappear when I have no cell signal. However, that doesn't make sense, since my contacts do not disappear when I put the iPhone into Airplane Mode (in which case by definition there is no signal) or when the phone actually displays "No Signal" at the top of the screen. And when it happened yesterday, I had 5 bars in the signal display.
    So I have several questions:
    (a) has anyone else experienced this?
    (b) does anyone have any ideas on solving it?
    (c) does anyone think the Genius Bar explanation makes sense?

    I am facing the same problem. my Contacts names disappear . Phone number is what just remains.
    However I do not think it is a Genius Problem. OR it is not even a problem of no cell phone coverage.
    Problems like these are usually OS Problems. So I think 3.1 is with full of bugs.
    2) I dont know how to solve it. looking for soultion

  • How can I copy contact entries from the "Personal Address Book" to a subsidiary list without typing 500 individual entries?

    There is about to be a death in the family. I need to establish a mailing list of all immediate family members, but it should not contain *EVERY* entry in either my Personal Address Book or my Collected Addresses. Is there something like a drag-and-drop or copy-and-paste facility to accomplish this task?

    Check this article for more information on how to create a mailing list.
    When sending a message to 500 recipients you may hit a limit imposed by your email provider.
    http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_Create_Mailing_List
    http://kb.mozillazine.org/Limits_-_Thunderbird#E-mail_addresses

  • Manually entered contacts disappear from iphone

    Any contact (phone number) that I manuall enter on my IPhone disappears. Is it being wiped out by some mailbox that syncing? How do I stop it from happening?

    In which account are you entering it, local, iCloud, some other account?

  • Help with contacts between iphone and address book

    I am learning my way through the syncing activities and will say, as some other have, that it is a bit more complicated than I had hoped. I've had a mac for over 20 years and used the older mac.com, which I would sync with my computer. I did not renew it when I found I wasn't using it for the cost.
    I recently got my first iphone and had the contacts moved from my old cell phone by AT&T when I bought it.
    I have a lot of contacts in my imac's address book and I do not want to move all of them to my iphone. Some are just historical in case I want to email that person. For my iphone, I just want the contacts I use most often.
    So, in address book, I made a new group and named it iphone contacts. In this I have about 20 cnotacts with email addresses.
    On my iphone, I have many of these same people listed, but just their phone numbers as I did not send emails from my previous wireless phone.
    So my questions are:
    is there any way to get the two to combine via syncing? I want to keep the phone numbers in the iphone contacts and combine them with the email addresses that are in my address book on the imac. I would like to avoid having to open them both and do a lengthy copy and paste event But unless there is some way to tell the lists to combine with each other, on the iphone and in the group list I made in address book that I name iphone contacts, than that is what I'll do. But I thought it was worth a query here to see what options I might have.
    Thanks for any help you can give me.

    Bump, I did not get any replies to my query if there was a way to combine my iphone numbers in my cell phone contacts with email addresses in a group list in my imac's address book via syncing, so I am wondering if anyone knows if there is an app that might help me.
    Thank you in advance.

  • Hi i need to transfer my contact numbers from iphone to my address book on my mac, does anyone know how to do it? Thanks

    Hi i need to transfer my contact numbers from iphone to my address book on my mac, does anyone know how to do it? ( I'm not mobile me member) Thanks

    See Here
    How to transfer or sync content to your computer
    From Here
    http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/syncing/

  • Can I upload one contact from my iMac address book to my iphone from iCloud?

    Can I upload one(1) contact from my iMac address book using icloud to my iphone without having to upload the whole address book??

    No, it would upload (sync) your entire address book.  If you want to get a single contact to your phone from Address Book you can select it, then go to File>Export>Export vCard and save it to your desktop.  Then email the saved vCard (.vcf file) to yourself, open the email on your phone and tap the attachment to import the contact to your phone.

Maybe you are looking for