Having contacts suddenly disappear from your Samsung Galaxy phone can be alarming. Your contacts contain valuable information you don’t want to lose. Fortunately, it is possible to retrieve deleted contacts on your Galaxy phone.
Why did my contacts disappear from my Galaxy?
There are a few reasons why you may have suddenly lost contacts on your Galaxy phone:
- You accidentally deleted individual contacts
- You accidentally cleared your entire contacts list
- Your contacts were lost during a software update
- Your contacts were deleted due to a syncing error with an account
Don’t panic if you find yourself missing contacts. As long as you act quickly, you should be able to recover them.
How can I view recently deleted contacts?
If you’ve only just noticed some contacts are missing, they may still be in your Galaxy’s recycle bin. Here’s how to check:
- Open the Contacts app on your Galaxy phone
- Tap the More options button (three vertical dots in the top right corner)
- Select “Deleted contacts”
This will display a list of any contacts deleted within the past 30 days. If you see your missing contacts here, you can tap them to restore them to your contact list.
How do I retrieve contacts deleted over 30 days ago?
If a contact was deleted more than 30 days ago, it will no longer appear in your Galaxy’s recycle bin. But that doesn’t mean it’s gone forever. Deleted contacts may still be recoverable from your Google account.
If you had Google account syncing enabled on your Galaxy phone, your contacts may have been backed up to your Google account. Here is how to check:
- On a computer, visit https://contacts.google.com
- Sign in to your Google account if prompted
- Check if the missing contacts are listed here. They may be in a group called “Deleted contacts”
If you locate the deleted contacts here, you can select them and click “More” then “Restore” to recover them. The restored contacts will sync back to your Galaxy phone automatically.
How can I recover contacts after a factory reset?
Performing a factory reset erases all data on your Galaxy device, including your contacts. However, if you had backup enabled, you may still be able to recover deleted contacts.
Retrieve from Google account backup
If you had your Google account syncing activated, your contacts may have been backed up automatically. Follow the steps earlier to see if you can locate missing contacts by visiting https://contacts.google.com and checking your Google account.
Retrieve from Samsung Cloud
If you had Samsung Cloud backup enabled, your contacts may have been saved there automatically. To check:
- Go to https://account.samsung.com/ and sign in to your Samsung account
- Go to Cloud and select Contacts
- See if you can find your missing contacts. You may need to select “Show deleted contacts”
- Restore any contacts you locate back to your device
Retrieve from SIM card
If you had saved contacts to your Galaxy phone’s SIM card, these may still be accessible even after a factory reset. To recover SIM card contacts:
- Insert your SIM card into another phone
- Copy all the contacts saved on the SIM to the other phone
- Perform another factory reset on your Galaxy phone (if you haven’t already)
- Insert your SIM back into your Galaxy and turn it on
- The contacts will now be restored from the SIM automatically
How can I recover contacts after clearing my contact list?
Accidentally deleting your entire contacts list can be worrying. However, it is possible to get your contacts back if you act fast.
Retrieve from Google account
If Google account sync was on, your contacts may be accessible from https://contacts.google.com. Follow the steps outlined earlier to restore missing contacts.
Restore from Samsung Cloud
Check your Samsung Cloud backup at https://account.samsung.com/ to see if your contacts were saved there automatically. Recover any contacts found.
Use a contacts restore app
If your contacts weren’t saved to the cloud, a contacts recovery app may be able to help. Apps like Fonelab Android Data Recovery can scan your phone and restore recently deleted contacts.
Can I retrieve contacts from my SIM card?
Your Galaxy phone may have a copy of your SIM card contacts as a backup. To restore these contacts:
- Insert your SIM into another phone
- Copy the SIM contacts to the phone or to your Google account
- Perform a factory reset on your Galaxy phone
- Insert your SIM back into the Galaxy
- Turn your phone on and allow contacts to restore from the SIM
This should restore any contacts that were saved directly to your SIM card.
How do I backup contacts to prevent losing them again?
Once you’ve recovered your missing contacts, it’s a good idea to set up an automated backup to prevent this issue in future.
Enable Google account sync
Turning on your Google account contact sync ensures your contacts are always saved safely to your Google account. Enable this in Settings > Accounts on your Galaxy.
Use Samsung Cloud
Activate Samsung Cloud backup in Settings > Accounts and backup on your Galaxy. This provides another layer of contact backup protection.
Export contacts to your computer
You can occasionally export a contacts backup file from your Galaxy to your computer. This provides an offline backup you can restore from if needed.
Back up contacts to your SIM
While not recommended as your sole backup method, saving contacts to your SIM does provide an extra safeguard. Enable this feature in Settings > Advanced features.
What should I do if automatic backups fail?
In rare cases, your automatic Google or Samsung Cloud contact backups may fail or become corrupted. If this happens, you have a few options to try to restore missing contacts:
- Perform a factory reset, which may clear any issues and allow contact restore
- Remove and re-add your Google account, which re-syncs contacts
- Use a third party contacts recovery app to extract contacts from your device’s memory
- Attempt to extract contacts from a computer backup if you have one
Preventing contact loss can be tricky but fortunately there are many potential ways to recover contacts on your Galaxy phone if you ever encounter this issue.
Conclusion
Losing contacts on your Samsung Galaxy phone can be upsetting but is rarely permanent. As long as automatic backups to your Google account or Samsung Cloud were enabled, you should be able to restore missing contacts easily. Always act quickly as soon as you notice contacts are missing to improve your chances of recovery. Setting up redundant backups via multiple methods helps minimize the risk of ever losing important contact information.
