Losing phone numbers that were deleted long ago can be extremely frustrating. Those contacts may contain important people that you want to reconnect with or businesses you frequent. Thankfully, there are several methods you can try to retrieve a phone number that was deleted from your mobile device. This article outlines the top techniques to recover deleted contacts and phone numbers on both Android and iOS devices. We’ll cover checking your call logs, using your mobile provider, looking in messaging apps, reverse phone lookup services, emails, social media, data recovery apps, and directly contacting the person. With the right tools and techniques, you can likely recover those lost contacts.
Check Your Phone’s Call History
Even if you have deleted a phone number from your contacts, your call history may still contain the number you’re looking for. Your call history keeps a log of all incoming, outgoing, and missed calls, along with timestamps and durations. This record persists even after you remove a contact associated with a number.
To view your call history on an Android device, open the Phone app and tap the Recents tab. On an iPhone, go to Phone > Recents. You’ll then see a list of all recent calls. Tap on any entry to see the phone number. Go back as far as your call history allows to search for the deleted number.
According to Google Support, Android call history can display up to 500 recent calls. On an iPhone, your call history can store up to 500 entries as well. So even if you deleted a number long ago, it may still persist in your call history depending on how many calls you’ve made and received since then.
If you regularly clear your call history, or have made hundreds of calls since deleting the number, it may no longer be available. But for a number deleted in the past few months or year, check your call history as the first step in trying to retrieve it.
Use Your Phone Provider
Another method you can use to try to retrieve a deleted phone number is by contacting your phone provider. Many major phone carriers keep records of calls and messages, even for deleted contacts or numbers. Depending on how long ago the number was deleted, your provider may still have the records available.
To retrieve a deleted number through your provider, first determine which carrier you had at the time you want to recover the number. If you’ve switched carriers since then, you may need to contact your previous provider.
Call your phone provider’s customer service line and explain that you need to recover a deleted phone number from your records. Be prepared to verify your identity by providing information like your account number, phone number, address, or the last 4 digits of your Social Security number. Ask the representative to check their records for the specific number or date range when you would have been in contact with the deleted number.
Many major carriers like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint keep records for up to 1 year, but policies vary. Some may charge a small fee for accessing archived call/text logs. You may also be able to login online and view your past bills or account activity to find the deleted number.
Overall, your phone provider can be a great resource for recovering recently deleted numbers, as long as the information hasn’t been purged from their systems. Just be sure to act quickly, as most carriers only store records for a limited time. Calling customer support is typically the fastest way to get assistance accessing those logs.
Source: https://www.lifewire.com/retrieve-deleted-phone-numbers-on-android-5186576
Check Messaging Apps
One of the best places to check for a deleted phone number is in your messaging apps. Many popular messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram keep a history of your conversations, including phone numbers of people you’ve messaged with. Even if you’ve deleted a contact’s phone number from your phone’s contacts list, you may still be able to find it by looking through your messaging history.
Open the messaging app and go into your chat history or archives. Scroll through your conversations – if you messaged or called the number you’re looking for in the past, it should still show the full phone number there. You can tap on it to re-add it to your phone’s contacts. WhatsApp in particular stores your messaging history and contact details on its servers, so you can restore lost chats and contacts when you reinstall the app or set it up on a new device.
If you can’t seem to find a lost number in your messaging history, try using the search function within the app and search for the person’s name or any keywords you may have messaged about. This can help surface old conversations you may have forgotten about or archived.
Try a Reverse Phone Lookup
Reverse phone lookup services allow you to search for the identity of a phone number owner. They have access to large databases of public records and phone directory listings to find information connected to a phone number. Some popular reverse phone lookup services include:
Truecaller – Truecaller has one of the largest phone number databases with over 1.5 billion unique phone identities. Simply enter the phone number in their search bar to find information like the name and location associated with the number.
NumLookup – NumLookup provides free reverse phone lookups using an extensive database of phone records. You can search for full names, addresses, social media profiles and more connected to a number.
Spokeo – Spokeo claims to be one of the fastest reverse phone lookup services. They compile public data from phone books, social networks, marketing surveys, and other sources to provide information on a phone number.
These services are helpful for identifying who a phone number belongs to if you’ve lost that information. They can provide names or addresses that may help track down a phone number’s owner. However, they rely on public data so aren’t guaranteed to have full identity information in all cases.
Check Emails and Messages
One of the best ways to find a lost phone number is by searching through your emails and text messages. If you’ve ever contacted the person by email or text before, there’s a good chance their phone number is saved somewhere in your inbox or message history.
For emails, open up your inbox in Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, or whatever email service you use. Then use the search bar to look for the person’s name or any keywords related to them. If you find an email from that person, their phone number may be saved in their email signature or mentioned somewhere in the email chain.
You can also try more advanced searching by looking for emails with phone numbers using Gmail’s search operators. For example, searching “has:858” would pull up emails containing the 858 area code. This can help surface old emails that may contain the lost number.
For text messages, open up your messaging app and search for the person’s name or number. Mobile contacts usually appear with their names in messaging apps, so you may be able to find their number again through your text history. Be sure to check archived messages too in case the number was saved there.
If the number was lost some time ago, searching thoroughly through your inbox and messaging history is often the easiest way to uncover it again. Just a quick keyword search through old conversations can resurface the lost phone number. According to How to find a phone number using an email address, email archives tend to provide the most promising results for recovering deleted contacts and their details like phone numbers.
Check Social Media
One of the easiest ways to find a deleted phone number is to search for it on major social media platforms. Many people list their phone numbers in their social media profiles or have the number associated with their account.
Start by searching for the phone number on Facebook. Go to the Facebook search bar and type in the number. If the person has a Facebook account associated with that number, their profile may pop up in the search results. You can also try this search on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and other platforms.
According to an article on Guru99, sites like Social Catfish allow you to search for someone by phone number across many social networks at once [1]. This can save time versus checking each platform separately.
Some social media sites like Snapchat allow you to add a phone number as a contact. You can then type the number in to see if an account is associated with it. Instagram also shows profiles associated with a phone number when you try to sign up with that number.
Reddit users also recommend searching the number on Google and seeing if any social profiles appear in the results. Sometimes public listings or posts will contain both a name and phone number that you can match up [2].
Taking the time to search thoroughly on major social networks can help uncover a deleted number or reconnect with an old contact. Just be sure to use any information ethically and avoid harassment.
Use Data Recovery Software
One option to recover deleted phone numbers is to use data recovery software designed specifically for mobile devices. There are a variety of programs available, such as Myjad Android Data Recovery, that can scan your phone’s memory and restore deleted contacts.
Data recovery software works by accessing your phone’s internal memory and looking for remnants of deleted data that haven’t yet been overwritten. As long as the deleted contacts haven’t been permanently overwritten, recovery software should be able to find and restore them.
To use data recovery software, first download and install a program on your computer. Connect your phone to your computer using a USB cable. The recovery software will scan your phone and allow you to preview and restore any recoverable deleted contacts. Some things to keep in mind when using data recovery software:
- Don’t continue using your phone extensively after deletion, as you risk overwriting data.
- Recovery success depends on your specific phone model and software.
- Some paid software offers better features and recovery rates.
With the right recovery software, there’s a good chance of restoring accidentally deleted contacts and numbers from your mobile device.
Contact the Person
If you have been unable to retrieve the deleted phone number through any other methods, the last resort may be to try contacting the person directly and asking them for their number again. This can be done through any communication channel you still have open with them, such as email, social media messaging, apps you both use, etc. Simply explain that you lost their number from your contacts and ask if they can share it with you again.
Before reaching out, try to remember any context about when you last had their number or how you communicated with them. Mention these details when you ask them to jog their memory and verify that you previously had their contact information. For example, you can say “I’m afraid I lost your phone number when I got a new phone last year. I think I last called you around March 2021 about the school project we were working on together. Could you please send your number to me again so I can add you back to my contacts?”
If you have no existing communication channels available, you may need to ask around in any mutual social circles or communities to try to obtain their updated contact information. Make it clear you aren’t trying to track them down, but had simply lost their number and hoped to reconnect.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there are several effective methods to retrieve a deleted phone number. First, check your call history and messaging apps, as they may have records of the number. Try a reverse phone lookup or data recovery software to extract the number from your device or backups. Reaching out on social media or email can also help you contact someone who may still have the number. If all else fails, you may need to directly contact the person to obtain their number again.
Retrieving a lost phone number can be important for maintaining contact with people in your network. Our phone contacts often contain numbers for family, friends, colleagues and businesses we want to keep in touch with. Thankfully there are many options, from recent call records to backups, that make it possible to recover a number you may have accidentally deleted long ago.