Back Up iPhone Contacts

This article teaches you how to back up the contacts on your iPhone so that you can easily restore them or use them on another device.

10 Second Summary

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap your Apple ID.
3. Tap iCloud.
4. Slide "Contacts" to the "On" position.
5. Tap Merge, if prompted.

Open Settings. It's a gray app with gears (⚙️) that's typically located on your home screen.
Tap your Apple ID. It's the section at the top of the menu that contains your name and image, if you've added one.
- If you are not signed in, tap Sign in to (Your Device), enter your Apple ID and password, then tap Sign In.
- If you are running an older version of iOS, you may not need to do this step.
Tap iCloud. It's in the second section of the menu.
Slide "Contacts" to the "On" position. It's located in the "APPS USING ICLOUD" section of the menu and will turn green when enabled.
Tap Merge if prompted. Doing so merges any existing contacts on your iPhone with contacts stored in iCloud.
- When "Contacts" is first enabled, your iPhone contacts will immediately be synced with your iCloud account. Any changes that you make will synchronize across all of your connected devices.
- You don't need to perform a full iCloud Backup to save your contacts. The contacts sync separately from the iCloud Backup.

Connect your iPhone to your computer and launch iTunes. It may launch automatically when you connect your iPhone.
- If you don't have iTunes installed, you can download it for free from apple.com/itunes/download/.
Select your iPhone at the top of the iTunes window. It may take a moment for it to appear.
- If this is your first time connecting your iPhone, you may have to tap "Trust" on your iPhone's screen.
Click .Template:MacButton in the Summary section. iTunes will begin creating a complete backup of your iPhone, including your contacts. You can use this backup to restore an iPhone and retrieve your entire contacts list.
- The backup process may take several minutes to complete.