How to Recover Gmail Contacts

Gmail is the most prominent among all the email platforms that are available today. Google launched Gmail in 2004, supporting all email clients through the POP and IMAP protocols. There are a lot of competitors to Gmail like – Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, and Inbox.com. However, Google has managed to slay them and continue to lead in the email industry. As of 2019, Google noted a record of around 1.5 billion active Gmail users. Each email you send can be up to 25 MB in size. Despite this, you can receive emails as large as 50 MB. These emails can include text, links, images, file attachments, and even signatures. While it was started in 2004, Gmail provided an individual storage space of around 1 GB. At that time, this was incredibly high when compared to the other email services available. Today, Gmail has increased the storage space to 15 GB per user!

Google / Gmail Contacts

Everyone you contact through Gmail can be added to your personal contacts record. For this, Gmail provides a special feature called Gmail Contacts. Using this, you can contact anyone from your Google contacts through any device that is logged in to your Google account. In this way, if you are changing to a new mobile phone or purchasing a new device, all you need to do is log in to your Google account. All your old contacts will be imported to your new device. Due to this incredible functionality, most of us have started putting our entire hopes on Google. We have no other backup record of our contacts. However, every technology comes with some unexpected error at some point in time. We may lose all of our contacts.

You may have accidentally deleted them, Google may have deleted them, or a technical glitch. Be it any reason, we are here to back you up. We have listed a few methods that may help you in getting back your lost contacts. Keep reading to find the best solution, follow it, and get back your contacts in no time!

Method 1 – Recover Gmail Contacts Using Google Contacts Trash

A lot of problems are reported every day on lost contacts. So, in order to cope up with that, Google has introduced the Trash feature. Using this, you can get back your contacts if you have deleted them accidentally or changed your mind. When you delete a contact, instead of disappearing forever, the contact moves to the Trash. This trash folder acts as temporary storage and holds your deleted contacts for 30 days. During this period, you can restore your contacts anytime you want. After these 30 days, Google automatically deletes your contacts permanently. After this, you cannot get back your contacts by this method. Here is how you recover contacts from trash –

1. Firstly, ensure whether you are logged in to your Google account. If not, log into your account on your web browser.
2. Go to the official Google Contacts page.
3. Scroll down on the menu to your left. Click on Trash (Sometimes labelled as Bin based on your language settings).
4. A list of all the contacts deleted in the past 30 days appear hear along with the reason of deletion. Find the contact that you want to recover.
5. Hover over (move your mouse over) that particular contact. The Recover option will appear to its right. Click on it.
6. If you want to recover more than one contact at the same time, hover over one contact and you will see a small check box to the left of the contact. Click on it to select it. Similarly, select all the contacts that you want to recover. Now, click on Restore or Recover on the top menu.

That’s it! You have now successfully restored your deleted contacts. You can find them in your contacts as you always do.

Method 2 – Restore Gmail Contacts by Rolling Back all Changes

If you can’t find your trash or if you face any other problem in getting back your contact, then this method is suitable for you. Google Contacts provides an option to undo all changes that you made before. You can even select a time period – anywhere between the past 10 minutes to the past 30 days. All changes that you made in this period will be canceled and your entire account will go back to an older state. Here is how you do it –

1. Make sure that you are logged in to your Google account on the web browser that you are using.
2. Go to the official Google Contacts page.
3. Click on the gear icon (settings) on the top right corner.
4. From the two options, click on Undo changes.
5. From the dialog box that pops up, choose the time period where you want to undo changes.
6. Now click on Undo.

That’s it! All of your changes are undone and your account is rolled back to the time that you mentioned earlier. However, if you have added any new contacts in that time period, you will lose them too. This is because your account deletes all the changes that you have made in the mentioned period.

Method 3 – Restoring Deleted Gmail Contacts from Backup

In this method, we will be restoring all your deleted contacts from your Google backup. You can perform this method only on your smartphone (or tablet). Google sometimes takes a backup of your status from time to time. These details are stored in your smartphone and we can recover them easily. So firstly, we will check if there are any backups on your smartphone. Here is how you do it –

1. Open the Settings of your smartphone (either from the settings application or the gear icon on top).
2. Scroll down the options and select the one labeled Google.
3. Now, click on Set up & Restore.
4. Choose Restore Contacts.

You can even specify the particular contacts that you want to restore from your Google Account. However, this method works only if you have synced all your contacts with your Google Account. Even though you have turned off the sync feature later, your contacts will remain saved on your device. Also, you can restore contacts from Gmail only before 30 days since you deleted them. After that, there is no way to recover them.