iPhone contacts aren't syncing to iCloud

Question

Contacts on my iPhone 4 are not syncing to iCloud even though it is set as on. It is a new phone, and the contacts synced when I first set up iCloud, but not since. I have tried "backup now" and new notes appeared, but no new contacts.

Answer 1

If you have more than one account with contacts, make sure your contacts are saved to your iCoud account and not any other (Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendar -> Contacts -> Default Account -> iCloud (or what ever you've named it). I use Gmail as main account, and therefore new contacts aren't added to my iCloud by default.

If you've done that and it still doesn't work, remove your iCloud account from you settings (Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendar -> iCloud (or what ever you've named it) -> Delete Account). Restart your phone and add it again and restart it once again. Your contacts, notes, events etc will NOT be deleted from your iCloud account, but any data NOT synced WILL (does not affect other account of course)!

Answer 2

I suggest you to try to reset your iCloud Documents.

• Go to http://www.iCloud.com, sign in with your Apple ID. Click on
• your name at upper-right corner > account settings Click Reset

• Documents & Data Confirm reset

  (this will not erase anything, I just did it and it worked fine)

• Restart your devices

See also : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5824

Answer 3

This is what worked for me after speaking with a very helpful Apple senior tech agent:

Open Settings> Mail, Contacts, Calendars> Contacts – Default Account = must contain a check next to iCloud.That’s it! Now all future contacts created on your iPhone (on your iPad, do the same as above), will also appear in iCloud and Outlook (if you’ve also set up Outlook).

If you have contacts that are already only on your iPhone/iPad then you’ll want to: Open Phone> Contacts> Groups (top left corner)> Hide All Contacts (top left corner). Then select/Checkmark all email accounts/accounts you see listed and make sure that iCloud it NOT check marked here while you’re fishing for all those rogue contacts. Click done and what will then be displayed, are contacts that you saved somewhere other than iCloud. Then recreate these contacts you see, one by one, by going into iCloud.com, your other iDevice or Outlook on your desktop and create them as new contacts. For best results I recommend that you DO NOT press save for the new contact until you FIRST press delete* on the non-iCloud contact you are about to make a copy of. Of course press delete only after you’ve copied all of the contact data.

• To delete a contact on your iPhone/iPad: Contacts> select the contact> tap Edit (top right corner)> Scroll to the bottom and select Delete Contact.

Answer 4

I have an iPhone 5S and logged into icloud.com (via Windows) and couldn't see my updates from my phone. To resolve this, within icloud.com I selected icloud settings from the top right menu and Advanced > Data Security and select Sign out of all browsers. Once I logged back in online and on my phone the updates appeared. Genuis ;-) !!!

Answer 5

1. Got to Settings
2. Go to iCloud
3. Slide Contacts option to Off (You'll get a warning, make sure you choose to save the Contacts on your phone)
4. Close out of Settings
5. Wait 5 minutes or so
6. Go back to Settings / iCloud
7. Slide Contacts option to On (You'll get a message asking to merge Contacts, say yes)
8. Go to Settings / iCloud / Storage & Backup
9. Select Back Up Now

Answer 6

I think most of the problem has to do with the fact that contacts can be saved in different groups. If, by default, your iphone doesn't save contacts into your iCloud group it will not sync with Contacts on your Mac. Therefore you need to configure your iPhone to save your new contacts to iCloud rather than another group (like Exchange). Alternatively, you can configure Contacts to also sync with whatever alternative group is on your iPhone.