Nobody likes watching their data disappear without permission, especially when it is mission-critical information that lets you stay in touch with your colleagues, relatives, or friends. Contacts are one such kind of information. Losing an important phone number might become a serious problem, which is why every modern smartphone and computer sync contacts when you sign in with your Google, Apple, or Microsoft account.
Still, sometimes unexpected things happen, and you might find many contacts missing on your device. In this article, we will show you how to restore contacts from Gmail, the most popular email service and the default account for hundreds of millions of Android smartphones.
Restore Deleted Contacts in Gmail
Google knows losing contacts is a big issue, so the company has implemented a system that automatically backs up all your contacts and allows “going back in time.” The latter means you can restore all your contacts library from a specific period, such as a few minutes, one hour, one day, one week, and more. And the best part is that the process is fully automated and does not require you to enable it manually. If you have a Google account with stored contacts inside, Google keeps them safely stored in frequent backups for your peace of mind.
It is also worth noting that Google automatically creates contacts using your email, so you can use sent or received mail to find the email address you want to restore.
Note. The following method will not work if you have not signed in with your Google account or disabled contacts sync.
Important. Back up your existing contacts so that you will not lose changes you have made after deleting or losing the contacts you now want to restore.
Now here is how you recover deleted contacts in Gmail. This method will
- Go to contacts.google.com and sign in with your Google account. Alternatively, you can click the launcher button at the bottom-right corner of the screen and select Contacts on any popular Google website (YouTube, Search, Gmail, Photos, etc).
- Click the Import button on the left pane and back up existing contacts. You will need this backup in case you want to restore the newer contacts. Feel free to skip this step if you are sure you will not lose more recent phone numbers.
- Click the button with a cog icon to the right of the search bar and select Undo changes.
- Select the period to restore your contacts. You can try several if you are unsure when the contacts you want to restore disappeared from your Google account.
- Click Undo and wait for Google to restore your contacts.
The method above works on any relatively modern device—smartphone, tablet, or computer—as long as you store contacts in your Google account. If you have an Android phone and you frequently back up your device to Google’s cloud, go to Settings > Google and open the section responsible for restoring contacts, then follow the on-screen instructions.
