Sudden disappearance of contacts on iPhone

Hi,

im experiencing a very similar problem, with a number of random contacts disappearing (all of different random ages). Not sure if this is correct, but it may be that some were contacts that were stored to my Sim. Using Copilot, it stated that there has been a shift by Apple to move away from ‘iPhone’, as a source (which incidentally is still on my wife’s iPhone 16 which is on a slightly earlier OS Version than mine (iPhone 13 on 18.6.2). If iPhone was automatically removed as a List during an upgrade before sim data was synced, this might explain a ‘random’ disappearance of contact data. I’m not sure if new contacts can be added to a SIm if there are connectivity issues - this could add to sporadic pattern of missing contacts - ie when you are adding a new contact, some may go straight to cloud while others might go to Sim. If an account was only on the Sim, and the ‘iPhone’ option was removed from the Contacts Lists, this could explain a sudden disappearance.

i am still exploring the issue, I actually have a separate older phone, which refers to Lists as ‘Groups’, and this is allowing me to see ALL of my contacts (including the iPhone itself). When I restrict this to use iCloud only, I am getting a restricted list, suggesting that some of the contact data is in an alternative source.

one thing that I thought might have fixed the problem on my current iPhone 13, was to select the option to ‘Import SIM Contacts’ thinking that this would import the missing contacts from my SIM (if my theory that the missing data was there), but unfortunately this did not resolve it.

As I say, this is just me rummaging around for a potential cause, but in light of everyone else’s issues, there is a pattern suggesting that an upgrade is the trigger.

Perhaps what I have reported above may trigger a bigger brain to have a light-bulb moment.

in the meantime I’ll keep exploring.

Perhaps I misunderstood. I thought you were having trouble finding the settings for Contacts as you gave the incorrect path to that. It what you really meant is that you're trying to find the Contacts app, use Spotlight. Put your finger on any Home Screen anywhere but on an icon. Pull down. Start typing "contacts."

It's possible that you don't have it on a Home Scree but rather the it's only in the App Library.

My contacts…about 80% of them—disappeared beginning some time in early August or late July. I see from reading what others are saying and experiencing that this is a continuing problem. I have lost almost an entire 40 year career not to mention personal contacts and other significant contacts and information. I have spent hours on the phone with Apple and four genius bar appointments. Genius bar basically told me 2 days ago that they cannot fix it and that I should stop trying to get them to fix it. The info is gone. Shocking response. I saw that one person on this chain discussion was told that Apple’s engineers are working on this. Has anyone gotten a positive response in terms of working on recovery?

I have lost over half my contacts after ios25 upgrade. I went through all the steps with Apple to have their tech guy say "As you can see, we have taken all steps and that data is no longer available." They have no solution.

Then I noticed that I was being asked to sign into an exchange account for an old business email address I've not used (and I shut down) 14 years ago. Some of the lost contacts have only been added in the past year or two, well after I closed that account and removed from my phone.

I spoke with my IT team who said that it's been lazy programming with Apple sticking a place holder for data against any exchange account they could find on my record rather than saving data.

I have emailed and written to Apple about the fact that I backed up to icloud (as recommended) and I pay for icloud to store my data and it failed. No response.

Have you found any solutions? I am horrified as I have thousands of contacts missing overnight and a ton of information beyond phone numbers. None of the suggestions have worked - the contacts have just disappeared.

I have had all of my contacts disappear and have done what they say to recover on icloud but still they are not coming back. All contacts were on "on" in the icloud back up. I've restored to yesterday and I know there was a new Apple upgrade so that must be the reason why none of what I have done has worked and I am without my contacts. If I scroll through my messages and look at my id on my phone it's back over 5 years ago. My pic is up to date but the address details etc are very old. I need urgent help with this as this is my business. It's saying I have 673 contacts when I had over 1000 possibly 1500 it was 720 this morning now it's gone down. HELP

Agreed, there doesn't seem to be a common thread in what's missing. I did have a bunch of contacts magically come back but many still

missing. A majority of my regular text communication are missing the associated contact info. I also have since discovered my Outlook Calendar data is missing and none of that has returned.

I have not. No suggestions on any of the threads have been applicable. I have discovered my calendar is missing too with recently add meetings/events. I have contacts missing from within the last few years and then some that are probably 15 years old so there's no consistency with why some would be missing! Definitely making me rethink iPhones,updates and iCloud. I have blindly trusted all of them.

After the new update over the weekend my phone has started deleting my contacts. This is a huge issue as I have business contacts accrued from the past 10 years that i no longer have access to. Apple, you need to resolve this as a matter of urgency.

Hi there,

I am having the same issue of losing certain contacts and I don't understand how you fixed it. Sorry to be dense.

I went into Settings/Contacts. I see Contacts Accounts and it lists my 4 accounts..icloud, gmail, work account, and rcn. When I click on Gmail, I see mail, contacts, calendar. I can click off the button on contacts. and then click the button back on. I'm not sure where you are seeing teh "email not authenticated" . Thanks in advance for your help.

Hey! Just curious how you figured this out, because this is ME. Same issue as everyone else. Have tried all the steps to restore the contacts, but nothing's worked. However, I do have an old, deactivated university account listed as a Contacts Accounts (Settings>Apps>Contacts>Contacts Accounts) that I had previously used with the Apple Mail app ~7 years ago. When I click on this Contacts Account, it says "Account not authenticated" at the top of the screen. I can't authenticate the account, though, because the account no longer exists (university deleted it years ago). Based on your comment, I'm assuming my contacts were somehow (??) saved here, even though I haven't logged into the account in years (I would also get the random popups about logging into a Microsoft Exchange Account and was always confused as to why). Any chance you figured out a solution? 🤞

I think this is exactly the problem. I had an old work email that is obviously gone like your college email. I think somehow all the contacts that were saved under that account are lost.

I don’t know why some contacts save under different accounts. They aren’t all related to work. Serious problem.

Thanks for your reply! Very strange that this is suddenly a problem for us now! It's also bizarre to me that contacts were saved under different accounts, but that wasn't made obvious when you saved a contact. I never received a prompt asking me which account I wanted them saved under, so had no idea it was happening. Frustrating, to say the least!

I have concluded that this is what happened with my contacts; an old work email account that can no longer be authenticated. But I have family members contact info and other personal contacts that was lost having nothing to do with my work. Seems that Apple would have given notification or heads up before they took action that is now causing me quite a bit of time to re-enter those contacts.

This should be of the utmost urgency for Apple. A class action lawsuit might arise from this, as this issue has severely impacted a number of businesses. I can not beleive, even with the Cloud, that I am losing my contacts. I need these contacts to make a living and support my family. This is unbelievable. How is this not all over the news by now?