The contacts that you have on your iPhone can quickly add up and soon before you know there will be hundreds and thousands of contacts stored on your device. So, it is definitely worth taking out some time and backup iPhone contacts to more than one locations. In fact, there are several backup options available and you can use any combination of these available options. You can create backup on your macOS, iOS and even on a third-party solution. It can easily become overwhelming to save all the lost contacts all over again in case you accidentally happen to lose them. But when you have several backups of your contacts, you can easily restore from one of them any time.
Among all the options you can try to backup iPhone contacts, iTunes and iCloud remain to be on top of all and we’ll be covering these two first as well. Afterwards, several other options will be described as well.
Jump To Section
- How To Backup iPhone Contacts With iCloud
- How To Backup iPhone Contacts With iTunes
- How To Backup iPhone Contacts And Export Them To Email
- How To Backup iPhone Contacts To vCard On Your macOS
- How To Backup Contacts Using iXpand Flash Drive From SanDisk
- How To Backup Contacts Using SynciOS App
How To Backup iPhone Contacts With iCloud
Here are the steps that you will have to follow for creating iCloud backup of all your iPhone contacts.
- Open Settings on your iPhone from the Home screen of your device
- Tap the Apple ID that you’re using on your iPhone. This section is present on top of menu containing your name as well as image – obviously, if you have added it
- If you’re not already logged into your account, tap on Sign into Your iPhone, enter your Apple login details and tap on Sign In.
- If you’re on an older iOS version, this step may not be needed at all.
- Tap on iCloud button from second section in the menu
- Turn the slider in front of Contacts to ‘On’. You can find it in “Apps Using iCloud” area of menu and it will turn to green color once enabled
- If asked, tap on Merge. This will merge all the existing contacts from your iPhone and the one stored on iCloud together.
- When you first enable “Contacts”, all the contacts on your iPhone will be synced right away with the iCloud account you are using. All the changes that will be made after this will automatically sync across all the connected devices.
- There is no need to go for a complete iCloud Backup for saving your contacts. Contacts syncing will be performed separately from iCloud Backups.
How To Backup iPhone Contacts With iTunes
The second option you have to backup iPhone contacts is with iTunes. Here are the steps that you will have to follow for that.
- Connect the iPhone to Pc or Mac and launch the iTunes software. iTunes may also launch automatically as soon as your iPhone is connected.
- If iTunes is not installed on your device, it can be downloaded for free right away.
- In iTunes window, select iPhone right at the top. Sometimes, it takes a moment to appear on your screen.
- If your iPhone is connected for the first time, it may require you to tap on ‘Trust’ from the screen of your device.
- In Summary section, click on ‘Backup Now’ and iTunes will start creating complete backup for your iPhone and this will include contacts as well. This backup can then be used for restoring iPhone as well as retrieving all the contacts that were backed up from your device.
- It may take a few minutes to backup iPhone contacts completely
How To Backup iPhone Contacts And Export Them To Email
Another option you have for backing up your contacts on iPhone is to export them to email address you use. Here are the steps that you will need to follow in order to create this type of backup.
- First of all, click Settings and choose “Mail, Contact, Calendar” on your iPhone
- On the next page, select the “Add Account” option
- Click “Exchange” from the options list that shows on the screen
- Provide all the required info according to your email details
- On next page, choose “Save and Export” option.
That’s all, your contacts have been exported and a backup is created.
How To Backup iPhone Contacts To vCard On Your macOS
Another option to backup iPhone contacts is to create vCard file on your macOS. Exporting the contacts to vCard file really is one quick way for creating backups which you can save on your PC, Mac, thumb drive or an external hard disk drive. Here are the steps that you can use for creating such backups.
- Open Contacts from your Mac
- Choose all contacts that you want to save/export (You can use Command-A shortcut from keyboard for selecting all contacts)
- Click on File
- Click on Export
- Click on Export vCard
- Name your vCard file as you like and then click on Save
How To Backup Contacts Using iXpand Flash Drive From SanDisk
iXpand Flash Drive from SanDisk really is one convenient external hard drive option which you can simply plug into your iPhone/iPaddirectly and also to your computer. However, you will need iXpand Drive application for it to work and it can be used effectively for automatically backing up all your contacts as soon as the drive is plugged in. Here are the steps that you will have to follow for this option to work.
- Launch iXpand Drive application and tap on ‘Backup and Restore’
- Tap on ‘Backup And Restore Contacts/Calendar’
- Now, tap on Backup or select ‘Automatically Backup Contacts’
- If you don’t go for the automatic backup option, you will have to select desired contacts that you want to be saved in the backup (You can also tap on ‘Select All’ option from top right side of the screen)
- Tap on Archive Contacts
How To Backup Contacts Using SynciOS App
There are so many third-party applications that can be used for creating iPhone contacts backup seamlessly and SynciOS is one of them. It’s a quick and easy way of backing up contacts as SynciOS transfers all your contacts on iPhone to your PC and can even add new ones as and when you need. It is also possible to recover or remove iPhone contacts without any issues. Below are the steps that you will have to follow to backup iPhone contacts using SynciOS.
- Download SynciOS app and install it on your PC or Mac
- Connect the iPhone to your PC or Mac with the help of USB and then launch the SynciOS app
- Click on Information from left panel to see Contacts, Bookmarks, Notes, Messages and Call History on your iPhone
- Now click on Contacts icon and you will see several options like New, Backup, Recover, Delete and each of them can perform a specific function as described below:
- Click on New to create some new contacts on the iOS device
- Click on Backup to transfer all your contacts on iPhone to your PC or Mac to be kept as a backup
- Click on Recover for overwriting all the current contacts on your iPhone
- Click on Delete for removing any of your unwanted contacts
With SynciOS app, you can backup iPhone contacts in several formats including vCard, TXT and CSV format.
So, these are all the different options that you can use to backup iPhone contacts so that you can recover them easily whenever needed. All of them are good enough and they all work fine. You can choose any of them as you like and according to your personal preferences and keep all your iPhone contacts safe at all times. Using iCloud is probably one of the best options, however, as it syncs all your contacts across different devices and your contact list remains updated at all times. Nevertheless, you can choose your favorite as you may like; just make sure that you have your contacts backed up to avoid any problems.
Check Other Topics:
- How To Create iTunes Backup For Your iPhone And Why Do You Need It?
- How To Create Space On A Mac By Deleting Any Old Backups
- How to Restore Your iPhone, iPad From A Backup
- How To Activate iMessage On iPhone And Mac?