Losing contacts on an Android phone can happen to anyone. Maybe it was a simple mistake, or you were preparing the phone for sale and had a change of plans at the last moment. The good news is that Google has a backup system that lets you recover lost contacts up to 30 days after the incident. The bad news is that the process isn't very intuitive, but we're here to help you.
What should have been a simple contact management on your Android device ended with lost data and/or duplicate entries. Sound familiar? I admit Google has improved in that aspect, but losing contacts is something that still affects a very significant number of users, exacerbated by device renewal, or even worse, by the theft of the devices themselves, which despite security measures continues to hit hard. In its factory configuration, Android keeps contacts linked and synchronized under the Google account used to activate the phone, and that link is what ultimately rescues us here.
Recover Your Android Contacts via Gmail
If the new version of Gmail is activated on your account, it may be a bit more complicated to access the contacts section, but in the traditional edition you can click on the word Gmail (top left) and choose the Contacts option from the menu. Alternatively, you can access through Google Apps (the icon with nine squares), or simply by clicking this direct link. There you must go to the More menu and click on the Undo changes option. The most interesting thing here is that contact restoration has a time limit. Google offers a maximum of 30 days, with preset options of 10 minutes, one hour, 24 hours and one week. Choose the correct parameter and click Restore.
The last step is to take our device, go to Settings-Accounts-Google, tap the email account and request a contacts sync. Now, Google warns us of a critical detail: Any contact added after the restoration will not be shown. In other words, you'll need to export and back up those new contacts before continuing with the restoration.
