Key Takeaways
- If you’ve accidentally deleted contacts from your Android phone, or if they’ve gone missing for some reason, consider restoring a recent backup to recover them.
- Alternatively, you can try using the Google Contacts app or your Facebook app to see if you can find the lost contacts there.
- If none of these solutions work, you can always reach out to people in person and ask for their contact information again.
Losing contacts on your Android phone can be a real headache, especially if you don’t keep a physical phone book as a backup for all your important contacts. But worry not! We’ll walk you through some working methods to recover missing contacts, and it will only take a few minutes.
Android smartphones come with a built-in backup and restore feature that can be a lifesaver if you lose your contacts. If you’ve previously created a backup of your device’s data, you can use the restore option to retrieve the lost contacts.
To restore missing contacts on your Android phone, open the Settings app, select “System” or “About Phone,” and look for some sort of “Backup and Restore” related option. Here’s how it looks on a POCO device.
Choose “Mobile Device.”
Switch to the “Restore” tab. You’ll see the most recent backup listed, along with the date it was created.
Tap the backup data, select the data you want to restore, and then tap “Restore.” Your phone will begin restoring the data, and the process may take some time, depending on the amount of data involved. Once the restore is complete, tap “Finish” and open the Contacts app. You’ll see that all the lost contacts are back.
If you’re signed in with your Google account on your Android smartphone, then the Google sync system will automatically back up your contacts. This means even if you accidentally delete a contact, you can restore it from your Google account. To do this, first install and open the Contacts app on your smartphone. Tap the “Organize” option in the bottom-right corner, and then select “Bin” or “Trash.”
In the Bin window, you will find all the contacts you deleted from your smartphone. Tap the three dots in the top-right corner and choose “Select All.”
Tap the three dots again in the top-right corner and select “Recover.”
That’s it! Your contacts will be recovered on your smartphone.
Facebook continuously uploads your phone’s contacts to your account if you’ve granted permission. This helps them to suggest people who are in your contacts list but not yet on your Facebook friend list. The best thing is that this same Facebook setting can also be used to recover lost contacts.
On your Android phone, open the Facebook app and tap the hamburger icon in the top-right corner. Then, choose “Settings.”
From there, navigate to Account Center > Your Information and Permissions > Access Your Information > Personal Information > Your Address Books.
This section displays all the contacts uploaded to Facebook. You’ll now have to select each contact one by one and save them back to your phone. While the process is a bit tedious, you will eventually have access to all your lost contacts.
What to Do If Nothing Works?
Even after trying all the methods above, there’s still a small chance you might not recover your lost contacts. In that case, the best thing you can do is to reach out to people directly and ask for their phone numbers again. It’s certainly tedious, but when you’re out of options, you’re out of options. Good luck!
