01-01-2012, 09:55 PM

Hi everybody,

I’ll give you the rundown on my issue here...

My iPhone 4 was synching with my Outlook at work, including all of my ~2000 (very important) contacts, calendar and other stuff. At home I have a MacBook Pro which I use to back up my iPhone every now and then.

I am no longer using my Outlook account at work, so I deleted it from my phone via Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendars, leaving my phone with just my Gmail personal account. After doing this, ALL of my contacts have completely disappeared. Gone. I tried a restore from back up via iTunes on my laptop but nothing. My contacts in my phone book are completely empty and my "Recents" calls list and my "Messages" are all listed as phone #s and not my contacts first/last names.

Just so everybody knows, I did a search and nothing that came up (similar problems) have fixed this issue.


Does anybody have any ideas whatsoever that may help? If I am unable to retrieve my contacts via restoring from a backup from iTunes, how can I get them back? How could they just disappear without my confirmation?

Any help is appreciated! I need these contacts back before I go back to work next week

01-02-2012, 12:18 AM

I'm not certain, but it certainly sounds like the contacts, emails and calendars are all tied to your Outlook account, so deleting it would of course delete them as well. This is in line with what I have seen with Outlook accounts.

But just as a by-the-way, if I'm correct then you DID get a confirmation -- when you opted to delete the Outlook account it would have asked you to confirm that you really mean to do so.

Re-adding the Outlook account should also bring back the stuff you lost. You will probably then want to make a new backup in iTunes ASAP.

01-02-2012, 12:22 AM

Doesn't deleting it mean it's gone (forever)? How could restoring Outlook bring back my contacts/calendars etc?

Furthermore, the Apple Store set Outlook up for me. I have no idea what they did as it looked much more complicated than setting up my Gmail account.

Lastly, my Outlook account is no longer active(?) through my workplace as I am no longer there.

01-02-2012, 12:33 AM

Outlook is a server-based (usually from an employer) solution that handles contacts, calendars and e-mail. IOW, everything you may be seeing on your iPhone actually comes from your employer's server.

Thus, the moment you delete the Outlook account from your iPhone, everything tied to Outlook is withdrawn. It's probably not gone, it's probably sitting on your employer's server still -- waiting for you to add the account to another (or the same) device.

Setting up an Outlook account is a bit more complicated than setting up a typical email account, but your employer should be able to provide instructions (and you obviously know the account and password since you gave that to the Apple Store employees for them to help you set it up). So my guess is that if you re-open your Outlook account, your contacts and calendars (as well as e-mail) will "magically" reappear after a short delay.

If that's the case, and you don't want to be tied to Outlook for the rest of your life, then what you'll want to do next is CONVERT your calendars, contacts and e-mail to a format that lets you store them in iCal (or Google Calendar if you prefer), Address Book and Mail. Once that's done, synching your iPhone with your Mac will keep everything on both devices and you can let go of the Outlook account.

As I say, this is my guess based on others' experience with corporate Outlook accounts. I'm not sure that this will work but if you can find the password/login information it will be a quick way to find out if I'm right.

01-02-2012, 12:44 AM

Thanks for your help! I'll see if I can get it sorted out tomorrow.

08-14-2012, 02:23 AM

Originally Posted by ronald17

World’s 1st iPhone 4 Data Recovery - Get Back Lost or Deleted Data without Backup

What are you talking about?

08-14-2012, 02:27 AM

Ok…..

08-16-2012, 09:44 AM

Hi guys, I have a similar problem with my iPhone as my iPhone contacts disappeared. However, in my case, I just turned Contact sync under my iCloud settings. What happened? Did I do something wrong? Just 5 minutes ago I used to have my iPhone full of contacts - now that the iCloud is on - there is Zero!

I am on iPhone 4 running on os 5.0. Thank you for your help as it is needed urgently. I will not touch my iPhone until somebody provides me with a set of instructions. Thank you.

08-16-2012, 12:00 PM

I'm not sure but this might help you:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4079098