Recover contacts: How to recover Android and iphone contacts

You accidentally deleted a contact from the address book of your smartphone Android and you don’t know how to get it back? Have you just bought a new phone but don’t know how to transfer the address book of your old smartphone to it? Don’t worry, I’m here to help you out and explain how to do it.

With today’s guide, we’ll find out together how to recover android contacts when you accidentally delete names from the address book and we will see how to transfer contacts from one mobile phone to another (from Android to Android or from iPhone to Android) using the online synchronization of Google or VCF file to be exported and imported “manually” on the phone.

In both cases, these are extremely simple operations to complete that will take you a few minutes, but it must be said that restoring deleted contacts is not always possible. The outcome of the procedure depends very much on the date on which the names to be recovered were deleted and on whether or not the synchronization of contacts with Gmail was activated. To find out more, read on. You will find illustrated all the steps to take right below. Good luck!

How to recover contacts on Android 

How to recover Android contacts ©Aranzulla

You were trying to clean up your Android smartphone’s address book but by mistake, you deleted all your contacts and now you are desperate because you don’t know how to recover android contacts? Don’t despair, I’m here to help you.

You must know that although you have deleted all contacts, Google keeps them saved in the Recycle Bin for up to 30 days, so within this time frame you can recover them without problems. In order to use this function, however, you must have previously activated the contact synchronization for your Google account. Otherwise, you will not be able to recover the contacts removed from the address book.

How do you say? Didn’t you know about this possibility and want to find out how to do it right away? Well, I’d say don’t waste any more time and get started right away.

The first thing you need to do is open the app Google contacts on your smartphone, but if it is not present you must download it from Play Store. Once the app is open, tap the button with the three lines at the top left and from the pop-up menu tap on the item Trash can. In this section you will notice that all contacts that you have deleted in the last 30 days and that can still be recovered will be listed.

To do this, tap on the button with the I three dots at the top right, and from the menu that appears tap on Select if you want to select only certain contacts, or Select all if you want to recover all contacts. Once selected, tap the I button again three dots at the top right and tap on the button Recover from the menu that appears on the screen.

If you have never synchronized your contacts with your Google account, I suggest you take a look at my tutorial on how to recover deleted phone numbers where I detail some third-party solutions that you could try to use.

How to recover Android contacts with broken screen

How to recover Android contacts ©Aranzulla

Your Android smartphone fell to the ground and the display was completely destroyed. It was an old model, so you will not proceed with the repair, in fact, you have already bought a new smartphone model.

For some strange reason, however, when you re-entered your Google account on the new smartphone, the contacts were synchronized or your new device simply lacks Google services, so you cannot take advantage of the synchronization via Google contacts. Unfortunately, your previous device has the display out of order, so you are wondering how to recover android contacts with a broken screen it is not true?

Don’t worry, I will show you a very simple and fast procedure, which you can carry out directly from your new smartphone. The first thing you need to do is open a web browser (anyone) go to the service Google contacts and log in to your Google account by entering your email and password.

Once logged in, the page is dedicated to Contacts will show you all the contacts synchronized on your Google account, i.e. those that were present on your smartphone with a broken screen.

To be able to retrieve all your contacts, tap on the button with the three lines at the top left and, from the menu that appears on the screen, tap on the item Export. A small menu will be shown: select the item Contactsfollowed by the number of contacts present and the type of file to export between CSV or vCard (the latter compatible with iOS): ends the operation by touching the button Export.

In a few seconds a CSV or vCard file, depending on the type of file you choose. To be able to import contacts, all you have to do is open the app Contacts / Directory on your smartphone, tap the button menu placed at the top, and tap on the item It matters: select the file you just downloaded and wait for the procedure to import contacts into the address book, which could take several seconds depending on the number of contacts to be imported. More info here.

How to recover contacts from Android to iPhone

How to recover Android contacts ©Aranzulla

After so many years with an Android smartphone, you finally decided to try one iPhone. You have configured the new device, but you have noticed that your contacts directory is completely empty, so you would like to understand how to recover contacts from Android to iPhone.

In this case, you have several methods at your disposal to be able to recover contacts from your old Android smartphone and transfer them to your iPhone.

The first solution that I recommend you to adopt is to insert the google account on your iPhone and then sync the contacts in the address book. To do this, open the app Settings on your iPhone, recognizable by the icon of gear then tap on the item Contacts and then on Account.

Now you just have to enter the Google account on which you have synchronized the contacts, so tap on the item Add account select Google from the menu that appears on the screen, and then log in by entering your account email and password (if necessary, authorize the opening of the Google login page). Once you have entered your account, go back to the section Account and tap on the item Gmail that appeared: set on ON there activation lever of the voice Contacts to sync Google contacts in the iPhone address book. More info here.

The second solution that you can adopt, in case you have never synchronized the contacts with your Google account, is to export all the contacts in a VCF file from your old smartphone, which you will then need to send to your iPhone. From your Android smartphone, open the app Contacts / Directory on your smartphone, tap the button menu placed at the top, and tap on the item Export: wait for the end of the procedure for exporting contacts from the address book, which could take a few seconds depending on the number of contacts to export.

Once you get the VCF file with contacts, you need to send it to your iPhone via e-mail. When you got the VCF file with contacts on your iPhone (then you opened the message that you self-sent to yourself via the app Mail), all you have to do is press on it and touch the item Added all [numero] contacts and wait for them to be added to the iOS address book.

For more information, you can take a look at my tutorial on the subject where you will find the different solutions explained in every detail.

How to recover contacts from iCloud on Android

How to recover Android contacts ©Aranzulla

After so many years with the iPhone, you have decided to change and for the first time, you have bought a new Android smartphone. Once you have finished the guided smartphone configuration, however, you have noticed that the address book is completely empty and unfortunately you no longer have the iPhone you used previously.

You’ve always synced all your iPhone data to your iCloud account so you’re wondering how to recover contacts from iCloud on Android, it is not true? I have good news for you because the procedure is absolutely possible and it is also quite simple.

Take your smartphone, go to the iCloud web panel through a browser of your choice and log in by entering your email and password Apple ID. If the two-factor verification enters the Numerical code arrived on one of the devices where you still have the Apple ID active.

Once you get to the main screen related to your account, you will notice that there is no entry related to Contacts. No problem, just activate the desktop mode on your browser (via the menu or that of sharing) and wait for the page to load: now tap on the item Contacts.

After a few seconds, a screen will open with the entire list of contacts in your address book. To be able to export contacts, just tap on the button with the gear icon at the bottom left, and from the menu that appears tap on VCard export: in a few seconds, the file will be downloaded to your device.

Now that you have the file with all your contacts, all you have to do is open the app Contacts / Directory on your smartphone, tap the button menu placed at the top, and tap on the item It matters: select the VCF file just downloaded and wait for the import procedure to complete.

Mission accomplished! You now have all the contacts you had on your old iPhone again. More info here.