“Hi, I had around 400 contacts saved on my Samsung Galaxy 8+ as of last night. This morning, I received a call from an unsaved number, and on picking it, I realized I have her number. After the call, I checked my contact list, and there’s no contact there. I need help. How do I recover deleted contacts from my Android phone?“
The primary functions of a phone are to make/receive calls and text messages. Saving of phone numbers reduces the stress of having to memorize the names of every contact, and so, losing your contacts is a total disaster. Most times, the contacts are not really deleted or lost; they are hidden thanks to your phone settings. Other times, they could actually get lost, especially if you deleted them by accident or lost them to things like OS crashes, virus attacks, or even a factory reset. If you take action in time, you can still recover deleted contacts from Android phone memory.
This post will begin by showing you how to confirm if your contacts are really lost and how to display them if they aren’t. You will also learn how to do a simple recover deleted contacts Android from your Gmail account. Lastly, knowing that the lost contacts may still in the phone’s memory, we will recommend software to recover deleted contacts from Android phone memory if the Gmail restore also fails. So, to start, continue reading to the next section, “Part 1. Check if the Contacts are Really Lost,” to see if you need to perform a contact restore or if the contacts are hidden from Android.
Part 1. Check If the Contacts are Really Lost
If you check your Android Contacts app and do not see any contacts there, don’t fret. You may not have lost them; most times, it’s caused by a setting. So, before proceeding to recover deleted contacts Android, first, confirm that they are genuinely lost. Follow the steps below to check this. Note that this procedure works with devices running Android 4.X (4.3, for example).
- Open your Contacts app.
- From the top-right of the window, tap Menu and click “Contacts to display.”
- Choose “All contacts” to see if your contact list will now be displayed.
If you follow the above steps and still do not find your contacts, they might have been deleted. If so, continue to Parts 2, 3, and 4 of this article to learn how to recover deleted contacts Android.
Part 2. Recover Contacts from Gmail Backup
Users can configure their Android devices to perform periodic backups to their Gmail accounts. If you enabled this so called “Back up and sync“ setting, then recovering your Android contacts should be a walk in the park. If this does not work, you can try out software to recover deleted contacts from Android phone memory in Part 3. To get back your lost contacts from a Gmail backup, check the guide that follows:
- On a web browser, open Gmail.com and sign in to your account. Next, go to your inbox tab.
- From the dropdown on the left-hand pane of the Gmail window, click “Contacts” and reveal the “Restore contacts” option by clicking “More.”
- A new window will now pop up. From there, you can recover the missing contacts anytime within a month. Finally, pick a date and hit “Restore.”
If you have confirmed that your contacts are not hidden due to a setting, and you cannot also restore them from a Gmail backup, then your next course of action is to recover deleted contacts from your phone’s memory, using Tenorshare UltData for Android. UltData for Android, developed by Tenorshare is an amazing Android Data Recovery to recover deleted contacts from Android phone memory. It works on all Android OS versions and all device models, and with UltData for Android, your contacts will remain intact after the recovery. Below are some features that set it apart from its competition.
Features we love:
- Recovers lost contacts on an unrooted Android device.
- It is a versatile tool that restores contacts lost to any scenario – accidental deletion, operating system crash, factory reset, unexpected system root, cracked screen, and damaged internals.
- Easy and fast Android contacts recovery in only 3 steps.
- Supports more than 2000 Android device models, such as Huawei, HTC, LG, Samsung, etc.
- It has a selective scanning feature that lets you preview recoverable contacts and pick which you want to restore, rather than recovering all by default.
Step 1. Download, install and run the software to recover deleted contacts from Android phone memory (Tenorshare UltData for Android) on a computer. From the first interface, click “Recover All Data” and connect your device to the PC.
Get Tenorshare UltData for Android
Step. Next, enable USB debugging on your phone by following the steps below:
- For the general setting: Change the USB preference to “Transferring files” and click “Setting.” Search for the term “build” and select “Build number.” Next, tap the “Build number” option 7 times to enable Developer options. Find the screens below to guide you.
- For phones running Android 6.0+ : Open “Settings“ on your phone. Scroll to and tap “About Phone“ and tap “Build number“ 7 times. Return to Settings, tap “Developer options,“ turn it on and then locate and tap the “USB debugging“ option to enable it.
- For phones running Android 4.2 to 5.2: Open “Settings“ and tap “About Phone.“ Tap “Build number“ 7 times, and you will get a notice saying that “You are now under developer mode.“ Go back to Settings, click “Developer options,“ and enable “USB debugging.“
- For phones running Android 3.0 to 4.1: Open Settings, tap “Developer options“ and check “USB debugging.“
- For phones running Android 2.3 or earlier: Open Settings and tap “Applications.“ Next, tap “Development“ and check “USB debugging.“
Step 3. With USB debugging enabled, UltData for Android will now detect your device. For phones on Android 4.2.2 or higher, a new window will pop up at this point on your phone’s screen. Grant permission to allow USB debugging by tapping “OK.”
Select the file types you want to recover after the connection has been initialized. Click “Next“ for the program to start scanning for recoverable data. In this case, we check “Contacts.“
Step 4. After the scanning is completed, all the files will be listed out for you to preview before recovering them. The list shows both existing and lost contacts. To display only recoverable files, you can filter the scan results by checking the “Only display the deleted items” option.
Step 5. Check the files you wish to restore and hit “Recover” to save them on your machine. Contacts, SMSs, and call history will be saved in TXT, XML, and XLS formats.
Conclusion
In conclusion, losing contacts from Android devices is a fairly common experience. Yes, it is frustrating, but it’s not the end of the world, especially when there are really good methods of getting back the contacts. There are many software to recover deleted contacts from Android phone memory, and UltData for Android is one of the best out there, so I advise that you stick with it for your contacts recovery. Following the guide here closely, anyone can recover deleted contacts Android.
