Home Forums Peripherals & Multimedia iTunes, iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple TV Contacts Lost--How to recover?

In a hasty moment, I accidentally trashed the MacOS Contacts. Gone. Caput. Is there a way to migrate the contacts from my iPhone 4S to the MacOS Contacts without trashing the iPhone's contacts?

Also, is there any way to migrate Calendar from the iPhone 4S to the Calendar App on the MacOS?

Thanks in advance for the assist.

If you are willing to use iCloud it is a snap to migrate/integrate/sync all of those between your Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iCloud. The key is essentially in making the iCloud copy the master and all of your other devices then become mirrors of the master.

1. On your Mac
   1. System Preferences > iCloud
   2. Verify your iCloud account settings
   3. Check the box labeled Contacts
   4. Check the box labeled Calendars
2. On your iPhone
   1. Settings > iCloud — verify it is the same account users on the Mac
   2. Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars
   3. Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars — Verify the settings for Mail
   4. Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars — Verify the settings for Contacts
   5. Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars — Verify the settings for Calendars
3. Allow a few minutes for all the devices to settle and iCloud has now become the master copy and your Mac and iPhone have become essentially a mirror of what is stored on iCloud. If you change anything on your Mac, on your iPhone, or directly in iCloud it will be reflected on all the devices within seconds or at least the next time you connect to the internet.

If you are unwilling to have the data on iCloud follow the preceding steps and after everything has settled and all are synched, turn off iCloud on your Mac and on your iPhone then log onto iCloud and delete all the entries there.

CAUTION once everything is on the iCloud there is no quick or simple way to delete all the data from iCloud.

I tried to go all in for iCloud, but it consumed so much of my space, that I actually couldn't hold more than one or two messages. My poor iPhone 4S has only 12.6GB with 4.5GB Available. I have reduced my email addresses to three, but they can't hold a minimum of messages with ICloud running the show. I learned the hard way before your most recent email that "there is no quick or simple way to delete all the data from iCloud."
I lost my Contacts on the Mac by accident and the same with Calendars on the Mac. At present, my iPhone 4S is in perfect shape, it just doesn't have enough capacity. I've been thinning out the number of apps to make a little space, but I'm not sure it did much good. Not too many months ago, it was far different. I'm now looking at the 4S as a short term thing. There is a good possibility that new iPhones will be in our pockets in a few months. I've said this before, but the likelihood is much greater now. I'm sure I've disappointed you after all of the help you gave me and I just punted and went back to POP3. I considered it the shortest and quickest way to get up and going. I have a lot on my plate and I was desperate to just patch and run so I could spend my time on stuff that generates cash.

Admittedly a 16GB iPhone is perhaps sub-optimal but remember you can selectively choose what items you want to synch with iCloud. Synching Contacts on your iPhone with iCloud should take no more memory than the contacts took before you accidentally deleted them, and likewise with Calendar.

The items that take up the most of my storage are music, movies, audio books, and photos. That is why I keep all of those in iCloud. If I have an internet connection, preferably WiFi, I can stream from iCloud just as if they were actually stored on my iOS device.

For those few times when WiFi is not available or is expensive such as on an airline or traveling cross country by car, I will download a carefully curated selection of music, books, and maybe movies for entertainment and I use a GPS app that downloads only the specific maps needed for that particular trip. It would be very tight getting by with only 16GB of RAM like you have, but with careful management it could be done.

Joemikeb:

What you say makes perfect sense. I need to explain why I want to leave things as they are for the rest of the year. I have a heavy burden catching up on professional matters plus the usual holiday action plus a funeral for our daughter-in-law's father plus removal of cataracts from both of my eyes. I'm sure it sounds like I'm falling apart, but, really, I'm taking care of stuff that I've left undone for a long time. When all of that action is completed, I will be in much better condition to do the obviously good things such as proper configuration of my computers. If you'll just have patience with me, I'll get there. Your assistance and friendship are a treasure for me.

Joeboy I learned a long time ago getting older is not for sissies. First you get the to point where it is patch, patch, patch, and that eventually becomes patcheta, patcheta, patcheta… I am at the latter stage. Take care and I promise you will LOVE your new eyes. You will rediscover the wonders of color that have been darkened and muddied by the cataracts.

Thanks for the encouragement. I'll let you know when the results are in.

I need to know a fact. My Mail syncs between the computer and the iPhone 4S very nicely now and I have plenty of space for mail on the iPhone. This is because I lowered the burden on the iPhone by downgrading the Backups on the Backups panel for the iPhone from iCloud to This Computer. Now, the Calendar and the Contacts apps on the computer do not sync with the Calendar and the Contacts apps on the iPhone. Is this a result of my downgrading to This Computer on the iPhone? Is there a workaround to get the syncing going between the computer and the iPhone on these two apps? It isn't a fatal problem for me, but it is becoming very inconvenient.

Syncing between iDevices and computers happens via iCloud. If one of them is not using iCloud, the other won't sync with it.

By the way, it was never clear to me how your iPhone was "burdened" by iCloud. Yes, your free from Apple iCloud backup account is limited in size (you can increase capacity by paying more), but iCloud is not stored on your iPhone; that's the point of this whole cloud thing. If you backup to iCloud, it does not use any storage on your iPhone.

Now maybe you have exceeded your free capacity, but that's another story.

I don't know as much as you regarding iCloud, but I do know that eliminating iCloud usage enabled my iPhone to do things it couldn't do when iCloud was checked. I'm happy with it now except I wish I could connect Contacts and Calendar between the computer and the iPhone. My poor memory makes me sense that I did have that connection without iCloud in the past, but not now.

At one time, say iOS 1 through 5 or 6 that may have been true, my memory fails me too. But when Apple replaced their initial cloud products with iCloud that went away. You can still synch without the cloud via a USB connection to iTunes, but it is a pain in the nether regions of the anatomy and with each release of iTunes seems to fade further into the background.

OK. That settles it. Given the issues described above, I'll just keep doing what I'm going and not try to get any fancier until I have a bigger iPhone. I know my little machine has increasing limits with each passing year.

My frustration with making dual entries into Calendar and Contacts finally drove me to bite the bullet and do what you've suggested for a long time. I went to the Apple web pages and obtained a set of instructions for implementing iCloud which I followed carefully. It took a few hours since I was obsessive compulsive in my efforts to get it right. Both my Mac Pro and my iPhone4S are humming along beautifully. Thank you for your encouragement. It also helped that I am free of the temporary cognitive impairment associated with the three anesthetic doses I received during the last few months. Thanks again for your patience as well as the encouragement.

I hope you will find it as useful and problems free as I have.

So far, so good. If there would be problems, I hope they'd show up by now. It has been a huge time saver re Calendar and Contacts.

I've noticed an absence of updates. I believe that may because they're waiting for the next update of ElCapitan and iOS 9.

Again, thanks for your patience and assistance during a difficult time for me.

Well Apple just seeded the sixth beta version of OS X 10.11.4 and iOS 9.3 and given there are not notable updates or changes mentioned that would suggest they will likely go into full release soon.

(Besides that, given Apples target eighteen month development cycle almost all of their development focus and effort should be shifting to OS X 10.12 (Fuji?) and iOS 9.4 soon. Most common rumors about Fuji includes Siri support, followed by new search techniques, and iTunes evolving into smaller more specialized apps similar to iOS.)

Thank you. It seems that I learn a lot every time I post a message on this forum.

There are other services you can also use as gateways to recovery. One of them is to use a Gmail IMAP account. This is good for migrating email and contacts, and may work for calendar as well. I've used this on several occasions to pull data from somewhere stubborn (old versions of outlook, particularly on windows computers) to the Gmail cloud and then extract down to the mac by setting up the same IMAP account there, even if only temporarily.

I'm just checking in since it has been a while. My iPhone 4S is still performing perfectly since incorporating iCloud and iOS 9.3.2. The overall lesson I've learned is to go with the flow and don't try to buck the direction that Apple is taking. On the Mac, I'm using ElCapitan 10.11.5.

I am always grateful for the assists from the regulars on FineTunedMac. Warmest regards.

I might agree with you with one exception: at some point you may be putting a Ferrari engine in a VW Beetle. It could still run, but dangerously so; or maybe not at all.

OK, by that I mean your hardware could become a bit too old or sparse (RAM, etc.) for the new software. I might have thought that could be the case with your iPhone 4S, but glad it's going all right for you.

I share your concern, but so far I have no need to upgrade. I'm sorely tempted to get a 6S, but having cataracts removed from both eyes has truly "enlightened" my vision and lessened my concern about upgrading the iPhone.

The temptation to get the 6S was to take advantage of its larger size so I could better see the letters and other items, but after the cataracts were removed, I realized that I didn't need to "see better" by getting a larger phone.

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."

Mario Andretti