6 Best Fixes for Contacts Not Showing Up iPhone

This problem is often multidimensional with many causes and various solutions. In the following section, we report many proven and reliable solutions that we have discovered from personal experiences and research. Check them.

1. Edit contact

If you find that some contacts are not showing up in some of your apps, then changing the affected contact is a great trick you should try. By updating the contact with new information, your iPhone rebuilds the contact. This could help the affected applications to recognize the contact.

Step 1: Open the contact details and tap Edit in the top right corner.

Update the contact with new data. It doesn’t have to be valid information; you can add an email nickname, birthday, social profile or even a note.

2nd step: Tap Done to continue.

If the issue is affecting multiple contacts (say 20 or more), changing them individually may take time. You can try other solutions listed below for a more efficient approach, or if changing the contact did not resolve the issue.

2. Show contacts

iOS groups your iPhone contacts into different groups. This categorization is done according to the accounts with which your phone contacts are synchronized. If your iPhone contacts aren’t showing, make sure your iPhone is set to show contacts from all connected accounts.

Step 1: Launch the Phone app on your iPhone and go to the Contacts tab.

2nd step: Next, tap on Group in the upper left corner of the screen.

Step 3: Make sure all accounts are verified. Otherwise, tap “Show all contacts” and click Done to continue.

If the missing contacts still do not appear on your iPhone, try the following troubleshooting solution below.

3. Reactivate the short name

Short Name is an iOS feature that changes the way contacts appear on your iPhone by showing only a first name, last name, or a combination of both. While this helps users add more names to the screen in some native and third-party apps, it may contact visibility issues. Say contacts not showing in messages, reactivating short name can help restore them.

Step 1: Launch Settings and select Contacts.

Step 3: Turn off Short name, wait a minute and turn it back on.

4. Resynchronize contacts

Some iPhone users who encountered this issue fixed the issue by resyncing the Contacts app with iCloud. Turn off iCloud access for contacts and turn it back on. It might help to refresh the app and the missing contacts might resurface.

Step 1: Launch the iPhone Settings menu and tap on your name.

Step 3: Disable contacts. At the next prompt, select “Keep on my iPhone” to save previously synced contacts to your iPhone.

Step 4: Reactivate contacts and select Merge.

Wait a few seconds and check if the missing contacts are now showing on your iPhone.

5. Modify account settings

In addition to the contacts that you save manually, the iOS Phone app also groups and displays contacts from all accounts (Outlook, Google, Yahoo !, etc.) active on your iPhone. If you can’t find some contacts on your iPhone, make sure that contact sync for all connected accounts on your iPhone is turned on.

Step 1: Launch the Settings menu and select Contacts.

Step 3: Tap each account in the Accounts section and make sure contact sync is turned on.

If contact sync is already on, turn it off and back on.

6. Sign out of Apple ID

Contacts may also be hidden on your iPhone if there is a problem with your Apple ID. An easy way to fix this problem is to reconnect your Apple ID account to your iPhone. You should note that this might cause you to lose some data. Therefore, before continuing, you should know more about what happens when you sign out of Apple ID. Moreover, we recommend that you backup your iPhone to computer so that you can easily recover lost / missing data.

Step 1: Launch the iPhone Settings menu and tap on your name.

2nd step: Scroll down to the bottom of the Apple ID menu and tap Sign Out.

Log back into your Apple ID account and see if the missing contacts now appear in your iPhone phonebook or in the affected app.

Recover your contacts

If you have recent backup of your iPhone, you can also recover missing or deleted contacts by restoring the backup. This can be done through iCloud or by using third party PC software. If nothing works, restart your iPhone and verify that the operating system is up to date.