Transfer Contacts from iPhone Between Devices

iPhone doesn’t store contacts on the SIM card. If you want to transfer contacts between iPhones or copy the contacts to your PC, you can use the backups or iCloud. Here are several ways to transfer contact between devices in different situations.

Import contacts stored on a SIM card

If you want to import contacts from a previous SIM card to your iPhone, remove your iPhone SIM card and replace it with the SIM card from your previous phone. Tap Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Import SIM Contacts. Wait for the import to complete. When the process is done, remember to open the Contacts to make sure that the contacts imported. The contact information imported from a SIM card depends on how your previous phone stored information on the SIM card.

Sync the Contacts from A Previous Backup File

Generally speaking iTunes and iCloud backup files ensure that you have a copy of your data that you could restore from. An iPhone backup file makes it much easier to migrate your old data to a new iPhone or other iOS devices. You can restore the new phone to a previous backup of your old phone so that all your contacts, messages, notes, calls and other data appear on the new device.

Turn on your new device. A “Hello” screen should appear. Press the Home button when you see the “Hello” screen and follow steps until you see the Apps & Data screen, then tap Restore from iTunes Backup > next. Connect your new device to the computer that you used to back up your previous device. Open iTunes on your computer and select your device. Select Restore Backup. Then choose a backup. Make sure it’s the correct one by looking at the date and size of each. Wait for the restore process to finish, then complete the rest of the setup steps on your iOS device. If possible, keep your device connected to Wi-Fi and plugged into power after setup. This allows content like your photos, music, and apps stored in iCloud to automatically download back to your device. Please note that if you already set up your new device, you need to erase it before you can use these steps above.

Extract Contacts from iPhone/iTunes Backup Files

Extracting data directly from your iOS devices or iTunes backups is safe and convenient, and it doesn’t require you to erase your iPhone. Here is how we are going to scan and extract your contacts from iPhone with H Data iPhone Recovery Software:

Step 1. Download H Data iPhone Recovery on your computer, install and launch it. Connect your iPhone to a computer with a USB cable, select Scan iPhone for deleted files and click Begin Recovery From iPhone button.

Step 2. Keep your iPhone connected until the process is successfully completed.

Step 3: When the scanning process is done, click on the Contacts and you will be able to view all the contact information you saved on your phone, even the deleted ones, which are marked in red color.

Step 5. Select contacts or select all and click the Export Selected Records or Export All Records to save the contact information to your computer.

If your iPhone is lost, you can also extract the contacts from your iTunes backups. Open the H Data iPhone Data Recovery and click on View and Restore Files from iTunes Backups. You can manually add the iTunes backup files by clicking the Browse for iTunes backups button. This allows you to extract data from previous iTunes backups even your iPhone is unavailable at the moment.