Contacts Disappeared From Android? 7 Best Fixes

If you are an Android user on a regular basis, the Contacts app is likely to have become an important part of your daily conversations.

The extensive list of contacts allows you to communicate with people all around the world.

You may contact a family member and share happy moments with them with only a tap, or you can send and receive text messages whatever the occasion.

However, you may occasionally be unable to locate certain contacts in your Android call log for no explicable reason. This might be frustrating, especially if the contact who has vanished is the one you were attempting to call at the moment.

Here you can find several efficient techniques for recovering contacts disappeared from android.

Why Do Android Contacts Disappear?

You probably never imagined that your Android contacts might suddenly vanish. But it did occur. You kept scrolling through the Contacts app’s list, but they were nowhere to be seen. 

Contacts on your Android phone might be lost for a variety of reasons. The following are some of the most prevalent causes of lost contacts on Android:

• You inadvertently erase some contacts you don’t want.
• You execute a factory reset because your phone is hanging or freezing, and all of your data, including your contacts, vanishes.
• You’re using your phone near water and it accidentally falls into the water, causing your contacts to vanish from your Android phone.
• The phone was dropped from a great height while being used, and the screen was damaged.
• When a virus infects your phone, it corrupts your contacts and other data.
• The contacts are also erased after rooting the Android device.

Android Phone Contacts Storage

SIM Card

Many users solely utilize SIM cards to save their contact information. So, if you’ve done the same thing, you can recover deleted contacts by reinstalling the SIM card in your phone and transferring the contacts to your computer.

Users sync their contacts using online storage programmes such as Dropbox and Google Drive and external SD cards, internal storage, and SIM cards.

Internal Storage

All of your contacts on your Android phone are automatically saved in the “data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts.db” directory.

External Disk Storage

Many people keep contacts on their phones using an external SD memory card. You may find your contacts on the SD card if you have also saved them there.

Recover Disappeared Contacts From Android

To recover disappeared contacts from an Android device, follow the below-given recovery options:

1. Recover deleted contacts from Google Contacts
2. Recover lost contacts from backup
3. Evaluate the Contacts app’s display settings
4. Contacts may be imported from a VCF file or a SIM card
5. Recover Deleted/Lost Android Contacts From Gmail
6. Obtain Deleted Contacts Using SD Card Backup
7. Recover Deleted/Disappeared Android Contacts From Phone Memory Through PC

Recover deleted contacts from Google Contacts

Check to see whether you have Google Contacts to restore from. When you originally set up your Android smartphone, you most likely registered a Google account to sync your contacts automatically. 

If this is the case, you can restore lost contacts through Google Contacts within 30 days.

1. A nice Google Contacts tool is “Undo changes,” which allows you to restore your contacts list to any state during the last 30 days.
2. Sign in to contacts.google.com on your computer browser using the Google account connected with your Android.
3. Select the settings symbol in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.
4. Select the Undo button.
5. In the Undo changes menu, choose to restore a prior copy from a date you recall having your missing contacts. You have five possibilities to pick from 10 minutes, one hour ago, yesterday, one week ago, and a custom period within the next 30 days.
6. Select Undo. Wait for it to restore your Android phone from Google; all of your lost contacts should be restored soon.
7. Rather than accessing contacts.google.com, Samsung Galaxy users may restore Google contacts using the Contacts app on their smartphones. Simply tap the three horizontal lines > Settings > scroll down and press Undo changes > pick a time period > Confirm.

If you removed contacts more than 30 days ago, this procedure will not work for you.

Recover lost contacts from backup

When your Android contacts vanish, you can try to recover them from a backup you made before. The restoration process will not take long, but it will delete all new contacts added after the backup data. 

As a result, before conducting a restoration, you should make a backup of your existing contact list.

1. Launch the Settings app on your Android device.
2. Select Google.
3. Scroll down and select Set up & Restore.
4. Select Restore contacts.
5. You will be shown a list of possible backups. Choose the one from which you wish to recover deleted contacts and hit Restore.

It will restore your Android phone from the backup and retrieve the contacts you choose.

Samsung customers may utilize its cloud service to back up their contacts. There is a technique to recover contacts from your Android if you enable the “Back up data” feature and check the “Contacts (saved on phone)” option before they go missing.

1. Navigate to Settings > Accounts & Backup > Samsung Cloud.
2. Scroll down until you see the Restore data option, then hit it.
3. Verify Contacts (saved on phone). On this phone, you will see the last time you backed up your contacts.
4. Select Restore.

Evaluate the Contacts app’s display settings

The most common cause of contacts disappearing on Android is that you have ever adjusted the Contacts settings without detecting anything incorrect.

Your vanished contacts may still be on your Android, but they are hidden. Here’s how to tell whether this is the case and how to simply remedy it:

We’ll use a Samsung Galaxy phone as an example to correctly customize display settings. Depending on the brand and model, the technique may vary significantly.

1. Launch your Android device’s Contacts app or Samsung Contacts.
2. Select the little profile icon in the upper right corner of the screen.
3. If you have more than one account associated with contacts, select Contacts from all accounts.
4. Click the three vertical dots in the upper-right corner (next to the profile icon).
5. Choose Customize View to access the Contacts to Display option.
6. If “All contacts” was not previously chosen, check it.

Make sure that both the “Contacts from all accounts” and “All Contacts” options are chosen to see all of the contacts associated with the accounts configured on this Android phone.

Allow the phone to sync, then return to the contacts list and see if the lost contacts have appeared.

Contacts may be imported from a VCF file or a SIM card

Another well-known solution to the problem of your contacts disappearing on Android is the VCF file. Check your Android phone or local hard disc to determine whether you have a VCF backup of your contacts. 

If you’re lucky, all you have to do is import the file into your phone.

If your VCF file is on your computer, please first transfer it to the phone storage.

1. Launch the Settings app on your phone.
2. Tap the top left-hand horizon line three times.
3. Select Settings.
4. Click Import.
5. When the “Import contacts from” menu appear, choose “VCF file” and press OK. If the lost contacts are on an external SIM card, plug it into your phone and then pick “SIM card” to import your contacts instead.
6. Choose an account to which to save imported contacts.
7. Browse to the location where your VCF is saved and pick it.

Note: All of your contacts in the VCF file, even any previously missing ones, will be merged into your Android phone’s contact list.

Recover Deleted/Lost Android Contacts From Gmail

You can recover the lost contacts from your Gmail account if you have enabled Google account sync on your Android phone/tablet. Google accounts have a “Bin/Trash” category in which all deleted contacts are kept for 30 days following deletion. 

After 30 days, it is automatically erased from there.

So, if you have synchronized your contacts with your Google account, then the procedures to restore lost contacts from Gmail are as follows.

1. Launch “Gmail” on your PC and sign in with the same Gmail ID and password.
2. Next, click the “More” button and select the “Restore Contacts…” option.
3. Select the time period that includes your vanished contacts and then click the “Undo” option.

When the restoration procedure is finished, your deleted contacts will be restored to your smartphone.

Obtain Deleted Contacts Using SD Card Backup

Finally, you may recover lost numbers from Android phones if you have backed up your Android contacts to your device’s external SD memory card.

Follow the instructions below to recover deleted contacts from an Android phone or tablet using an SD card backup.

1. Insert your SD card into your device and turn it on.
2. Now, open the Contacts app and tap the “More” button.
3. Next, go to “Settings” and choose the “Import/Export” option.
4. Navigate to the “Import” menu and choose “SD Card” as the location to import contacts. Wait a few seconds for your device to import contacts from the .csv file.

Recover Deleted/Disappeared Android Contacts From Phone Memory Through PC

If your Android contacts have vanished from the device’s internal memory and you don’t have a backup, you may recover them by using the same Android Data Recovery programme.

The methods below outline how to recover deleted Android contacts from the device’s internal storage using Android Data Recovery Software.

1. On your PC, launch Android Data Recovery Software and select “Android Data Recovery.”
2. From the drop-down menu, select the device name and model.
3. The program will start downloading the appropriate data bundle for your device.
4. Now, connect your Android smartphone to your PC via a USB cable/connection and start it into download mode by following the onscreen instructions.
5. Next, choose “Contacts” as a data type and press the “Next” button.
6. The application will immediately display the deleted contacts list. Select the contacts you want to retrieve and click the “Recover” button.

When the process is finished, your deleted contacts will be restored to your PC.

Backup Your Contacts on Android

“Prevention is better than cure,” as the adage goes. You can see from the answers above that restoring contacts from a backup is significantly easier than recovering contacts from Android without a backup. 

As a result, it is always recommended to back up your Android contacts to deal with unforeseen data loss circumstances.

Contacts may be saved in Google accounts, Dropbox, SD cards, etc.

The procedures to back up Android contacts to your Google account are shown below.

1. Go to “Settings” on your Android phone and choose “Accounts and Backup.”
2. Select your Google Accounts under “Accounts.” If no account has been added, add your Google Account.
3. Tap “Sync” and toggle the button next to “Contacts” to the ON position.

By doing so, all of your Android phone contacts will be automatically backed up to your Google account, and you will have no trouble restoring them in the future.

Conclusion

Following the strategies outlined above, you may now simply make urgent calls from your Android phone.

If you have a backup, go through the backup options to restore lost contacts; if not, we wouldn’t recommend downloading any third-party software.

Because we feel that the techniques we have provided for restoring deleted contacts on an Android device are sufficient.