How to Sync and Upload Your iPhone Contacts to iCloud

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A user-friendly guide to syncing and using iCloud to store your iPhone contacts

Written by Rain Kengly

Last Updated: September 28, 2023 Tested

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• Syncing to iCloud
|
• Troubleshooting
|
• Q&A

|Show more |Show less

Do you want to transfer your iPhone contacts to iCloud? This can help keep your contact information safe if anything happens to your phone. You can even access your contacts on other Apple devices, such as an iPad or a Mac. If your iCloud contacts won't sync, you can easily troubleshoot it. This wikiHow will show you how to sync your iPhone contacts to iCloud.

Things You Should Know

• Go to "Settings" → tap your Apple ID → "iCloud" → "Show All" → toggle on "Contacts".
• When you sync contacts to iCloud, any changes you make to your iPhone contacts will reflect on other devices.
• If iCloud won't sync, check iCloud's status, update your device, and check Date & Time settings.

Steps

Section 1 of 2:

Syncing to iCloud

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1. 
   1
   Open the Settings app. This is the grey cog icon.

   • When you back up your iPhone contacts into iCloud, you can access them from other iOS devices, such as your iPad or Mac.
2. 
   2
   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.
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3. 
   3
   Tap iCloud. You can find this below Subscriptions.
4. 
   4
   Tap Show All. This will expand the list of available apps.
5. 
   5
   Toggle on

   

   “Contacts”. The switch should be green.

   • Your iPhone contacts will be synced to iCloud. If you make any changes to the contacts on your iPhone, it will also reflect in iCloud.
   • If you have existing contacts in iCloud, you may be prompted to tap Merge to finish syncing.
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Section 2 of 2:

Troubleshooting

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1. 
   1
   Check iCloud's status. Visit Apple's System Status page and look for iCloud. If there are any outages, you'll see Unavailable next to it.
2. 
   2
   Update your iPhone. Software updates include important bug fixes and, most times, stronger security features. Updating your software can fix newer issues while protecting your device further.

   • Go to Settings → General → Software Update → Download and Install.
3. 
   3
   Make sure you're logged into the correct Apple ID. If your iPhone contacts aren't appearing in your iCloud, ensure you're using the same Apple ID. You can check this in Settings.
4. 
   4
   Check your Date & Time settings. Sometimes, your Date & Time settings can affect the way iCloud syncs. Do the following:

   • Go to Settings → General → Date & Time → toggle on Set Automatically.
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Community Q&A

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• Question

  How do I start the iPhone contacts sync? Only new contacts added after turning on sync are getting synced. How do I sync the old contacts to iCloud?

  

  Minorite

  Community Answer

  iCloud will sync all contacts that are in "On my 'Device'" group. Make sure that these contacts are not saved in Gmail account or similar.

  Thanks! We're glad this was helpful.
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