How to recover Android phonebook

How to recover Android phonebook: Have you replaced your Android smartphone with a newer model and are unable to retrieve the address book from the old phone? Have you accidentally deleted some contacts from the Android address book and would like a hand to recover them? Maybe I can help you. Give me five minutes of your time and I will explain how to recover Android address book in various ways.

First of all we will see how to bring contacts from one Android smartphone to another using the online synchronization services offered by Gmail. Then we will see how to perform the same operation “manually”, by exporting and importing a VCF file with the Android address book using the tools integrated into the operating system.

Finally we will try to recover deleted contacts from Android through Gmail which – perhaps not everyone knows – includes a restore function to restore the status of the address book to an earlier date (up to 1 month earlier than today). Enjoy your reading and have fun!

Index

• How to recover Android address book: Gmail
  • How to recover deleted Android contacts
• How to save Android phonebook: VCF file
• How to recover contacts from Android to iPhone

How to recover Android address book: Gmail

The fastest way to retrieve the Android phone book and transfer it to another phone (or tablet) animated by the “green robot” is to activate the synchronization of Gmail on both devices, thus taking advantage of the Google cloud. You can apply this solution only if both devices are connected to the Internet and, above all, equipped with Google services (otherwise you will have to operate via VCF file, as you will find explained later in this guide).

If these requirements are met, you can act very easily: first, take the “old” smartphone and, after turning it on and making sure it is connected to the Internet, open the Android Settings, by tapping on the gear symbol located on the screen Home or in the app drawer and touch the Account item from the menu that opens.

On some devices, the path to follow may be different: for example, if you have a Xiaomi smartphone, you must open the Settings> Accounts and synchronization sections; on Samsung smartphones, however, the path to follow is Settings> Accounts and backup> Manage accounts.

Once you have reached the most appropriate section, tap on the name of your Gmail address / Google account and, if necessary, tap on the Account synchronization / Account synchronization item, in order to access the data synchronization settings.

To conclude, make sure that the lever next to the Contacts item is active, or that the relative box is checked, then touch the button (⋮) located at the top right, or the button (…) located at the bottom and select the Synchronize now item / Synchronize now, to force data transfer to the cloud.

If a Google account has never been set up on your old mobile phone, you can easily solve the problem by going to the area dedicated to account management seen above, by tapping on the button to Add an account and then on the Google icon, located in the next screen.

At this point, log in with the data of the Gmail account that you have configured (or that you want to configure) on the new phone and, once logged in, make sure that the synchronization of contacts is active, as I indicated earlier.

After this step too, you can switch to the new device: if you have already set up the same Gmail account used on the “old” device on the latter, simply check that the synchronization of contacts is active: within a few seconds, all contacts you had on the previous device will also be available on the new one.

If, on the other hand, a different Gmail account is configured on the device, add the one used on the old device: to do this, go to the Settings> Accounts menu (or Settings> Accounts and synchronization or, again, Settings> Accounts and backup> Manage accounts ), tap on Add account and tap on the Google logo.

Finally, pass the Android security check by entering the device unlock code or pattern, log in with the Gmail account used to synchronize the address book of the old smartphone/tablet and wait for the contacts of the newly added profile to be downloaded to the new device.

How to recover deleted Android contacts

If you have deleted important contacts from a device associated with a Google account and want to recover them, it will be useful to know that Gmail includes a function that allows you to restore the address book to a previous state, up to a maximum of 30 days.

Keep in mind, however, that by doing so the contacts deleted after the restore date will be retrieved, unless they have been permanently deleted from the recycle bin, but all other additions/changes on contacts made starting from the same date will also be canceled. : take this into account before doing anything.

In any case, the procedure to follow is extremely simple: connect to the Google Contacts online service via any browser for smartphone, tablet or computer, log in to your account (if necessary), press the resident gear symbol at the top and select the item Cancel changes from the menu that appears.

Finally, choose whether to return the status of the address book to 10 minutes ago, 1 hour ago, yesterday, 1 week ago or to a custom date (for a maximum of 30 days) and press on the Cancel item which resides on the right of the confirmation screen, in order to apply the change. After a few moments, you should see a small disappearing notice at the bottom of the screen, indicating that the procedure was successful.

Once this operation is completed, “force” the synchronization of contacts on Android as I indicated in the previous chapter of this guide, so the names deleted by mistake should return to their place.

How to save Android phonebook: VCF file

Is your old smartphone/tablet not equipped with Google services or, for some reason, you do not want or cannot use the synchronization services offered by “Big G”? No problem: in this case, you can recover the Android address book from the old device by exporting it to a VCF file and restoring it to the new one, using the same function.

Doing so is very simple: first, start the Contacts / Address Book application on the device, tap the ☰ button located at the top left, select the Settings item from the menu that appears and tap the Export item, located in the next panel.

On some devices, the path to follow may be different: if, for example, you have a HUAWEI smartphone, you must press the (⋮) button located at the top right and select the Import / Export item from the menu that opens; if, on the other hand, your device is produced by Samsung, you must press the ☰ symbol in the upper left corner of the Phone book app, touch the Manage contacts item from the menu that appears, press the Import or export contacts option and then the button Export.

At this point, if necessary, put the checkmark next to the category of contacts to export (contacts in memory, Google account contacts, SIM contacts or all) and press the Export to .vcf file / Export to archive button; to finish, use the file manager panel to select the folder in which to store the contacts.vcf file and tap the Save button to finish.

On the most recent Samsung devices, the procedure to be performed is a little different: after selecting the option to export the contacts, choose whether to store them in the internal memory or on the microSD card installed in the device and tap on the Export button to save the file Address book.vcf in the chosen location.

Now, you have to auto-send you the file with the contacts on the new device, via email, chat or any other method you prefer: to do this, open the file manager on the old device (eg. Archive or Google Files ), reach the folder in which you had stored the file containing the contacts, make a long tap on the latter file (or check the relative preview) and tap on the Share / Send button, to send it to you via one of the apps installed on Android.

Once sent, switch to the new device and download the .vcf file you sent yourself a little while ago in a folder of your choice; now, open the Android Contacts app, access again the menu for import/export of the address book that I indicated earlier and press, this time, on the option to import contacts. At this point, choose the option to Import from .vcf file, choose the location to save the imported contacts (eg. Gmail / Huawei Cloud or internal memory), select the .vcf file you downloaded just now and wait that the copying of the contacts is completed.

Note: if you have activated contact synchronization with Gmail on your old device, you can create a VCF file containing the entire address book via the aforementioned Google Contacts online service. So, visit the relevant website, log in to your Gmail account (if required), press the ☰ button located at the top left and select the Export item from the menu that appears. Finally, put the check mark next to the vCard option (for iOS contacts) and press the Export item to save the file in memory.

How to recover contacts from Android to iPhone

Are you switching from Android to iPhone and want to move all the contacts stored in the old device’s address book? Don’t worry, it’s much simpler than it looks.

First of all, if a Google account is configured on the Android device (or you can configure it), activate the synchronization of contacts on the cloud, as I explained to you in the initial chapter of this guide.

Once this is done, take the iPhone and, if you have not already done so, configure the same Google account on the “iPhone by” and activate the synchronization of contacts: to do this, touch the resident Settings icon (in the shape of a gear ) on the Home screen or in the iOS app Library, tap on the Contacts item (or on the Password and account option, if you are using an operating system version prior to 14), tap on the Add account button and then tap on the Google icon, located on the next screen.

Now, log in with the credentials of the Gmail account configured on the old device and, once the login is complete, move the lever relating to the synchronization of Contacts to ON and press on the Finish item, to conclude.

Now, if you want the new contacts created on the iPhone to be automatically exported to the Gmail address book, you must make sure that the latter is set as the default service for managing the address book: go back to the Settings> Contacts section, tap on the Account default and select the item related to Gmail from the screen that appears later.

How do you say? Can’t set up a Google account on your old phone? Then proceed in this way: first, create a .vcf file from the Android address book, following the instructions I gave you previously and, once the file has been created, auto-send it to the iCloud email address configured on the “iPhone by “.

Once this is done, open the iPhone Mail application, select the message with the attached .vcf file, tap on the attachment preview and tap the iOS share symbol (the square with the up arrow ). Finally, touch the item Import with Contacts and finish everything by pressing on the items Add all [xx] contacts and Create new contacts.

For more information, I refer you to reading my tutorial on how to switch contacts from Android to iPhone, in which I explained everything in more detail.