how to troubleshoot to ensure your contacts are showing up on iPhone – 7 tips

When you add someone to your iPhone contacts, you expect that person to always be around. And often. But sometimes, your contact list does not work as expected and some of your contacts do not show up on your iPhone. This article is about how to troubleshoot to ensure your contacts are showing up on iPhone.

how to troubleshoot to ensure your contacts are showing up on iPhone

Although it can happen for many reasons, there are ways you can fix contacts not showing up on your iPhone. This is how:

Restart your iPhone

If you mess with your computer (or smartphone) from time to time, you’ll quickly learn that many common problems are caused by temporary software glitches. Most of the time, you can easily fix the problem by restarting your phone.

If you need a refresher, here is how to restart any iPhone. After the phone restarts, check if you can find the contacts you are looking for.

Make sure to show all contacts

Sometimes the reason you can’t see all of your contacts is that they may be hidden. Here’s how to check and fix it:

1. Open the Contacts or Phone app on your iPhone.
2. Make sure it says Invited at the top. If not, tap List in the upper left corner.

3. Tap All Contacts. Check if you can find all the missing contacts first.

ensure Contacts sync is enabled for connected email accounts

If you have multiple email accounts on your iPhone, be aware that each account may also have its own contact list. It is possible that contacts are disabled for one or more of these accounts, but there is a way to check this.

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.

2. Tap Mail.

3. On the Mail app settings page, tap Accounts.

4. Check each account: Tap the name of the account and, if it has an entry for a contact, make sure it is enabled by clicking the button on the right.

Enable iCloud backup for contacts

You probably backed up your iPhone to iCloud before, and part of the backup includes your contacts. And if you have multiple devices, you should back them all up to iCloud. If you add contacts to your iPad, for example, unless you sync both your iPad and iPhone with iCloud, the new iPad contacts won’t reach your phone.

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Tap your account name at the top of the screen.

3. Click iCloud.
4. In the application that uses the iCloud section, make sure that the contacts are enabled by clicking the switch button to the right.

5. Now repeat this process on your iPad to ensure that all contacts end up on both devices.

Reconnect to iCloud

It is possible that some of your contacts are stored in iCloud and for some reason fail to reach your phone when iCloud syncs with your device. You can solve this problem often by turning off iCloud and again triggering a forced interaction.

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.

2. Tap your account name at the top of the screen.

3. Tap iCloud.

4. In the Apps to iCloud section, turn off iCloud sync for contacts by sliding the toggle button on the left. In the

5. In the pop-up window, tap Stay on My iPhone.
6. Wait a moment, then slide the contact switch to the right to turn it back on.
7. In the pop-up window, click Merge to merge your phone’s contacts with iCloud’s.

After a few minutes, all your contacts should sync and hopefully your missing contacts will appear.

Turn off shortname

Short names are the default for contacts that make it easy to read your contacts, but sometimes this feature can conflict with other applications. Try disabling this feature to see if it fixes the problem.

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.

2. Tap Contacts.

3. Click Short Name.

4. Turn off the short name by pressing the toggle button to the left.

Check for iOS updates

Finally, it’s always possible – but not impossible – that a bug or incompatible software on your iPhone has affected the Contacts app to show all your contacts.

You should check that your iPhone operating system is properly updated