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Why does my iPhone Contacts not sync with iPad?

OldCorpse

OldCorpse

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 7, 2005
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I’m on 12.2 on both my iPhone 6s and iPad Air 3 - and I got syncing of Contacts turned on in iCloud in both.

But I have made a couple of new contacts in the iPhone a couple of weeks ago, and today I’ve noticed that they have not appeared on the iPad. I turned off the iPhone and turned it back on, checked off “All iCloud” in Groups on the iPhone and checked it back on, and nothing is syncing. How do I get it to sync? The rest of my contacts were simply imported from the iPhone backup when I bought my iPad recently.

Any ideas? TIA!
 
Sign into icloud.com (will need to long press Safari refresh icon to request desktop site).

If the missing contacts are there, then iPad is issue, and need to go through the on/off gyrations of iCloud on it.

Might want to try completely signing out of iCloud and resigning in.
 
OK, this is bizarre. I signed into iCloud on my desktop and checked Contacts there - and indeed many contacts are missing, including contacts which I entered years ago! This is so weird!

I signed out of iCloud on my iPhone, and then signed in. Contacts still missing on iPad as well as on the icloud.com site.

Wow. Now what?
 
Do you by chance have any other accounts on your phone that could be syncing contacts...like gmail for example?

What is listed as the Default Account in Settings >Contacts?
 
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^^^This.

Or: do you have an "On My iPhone" group in Contacts on phone? Contacts might be winding up there.
 
ventmore said:
Do you by chance have any other accounts on your phone that could be syncing contacts...like gmail for example?

What is listed as the Default Account in Settings >Contacts?
Click to expand...

Yes, I have Gmail as my Default Account... is this a problem? Should I check "iCloud" instead?

Thank you, you're a life saver! :)
 
OldCorpse said:
Yes, I have Gmail as my Default Account... is this a problem? Should I check "iCloud" instead?

Thank you, you're a life saver! :)
Click to expand...
No problem! :)

Yes...you want to set iCloud as the default account. Any new contacts will then sync to icloud.com and your iPad.

You’ve obviously got contacts stored in gmail now too. If you’re happy to leave them in gmail, then adding the gmail account to the iPad and setting it up to sync the contacts should work. Make sure to check the default account on the iPad after you add the gmail account though.

If you want to move the contacts from gmail to iCloud, then I believe you can do that through the gmail and iCloud web apps. I’ve never done this, but you can google it......or someone may come along just now to explain it on here.
 
Last edited:
No luck :(

I checked "iCloud" on the iPhone, waited awhile, but nothing changed on the iPad. I then powered off my iPhone and powered off my iPad, and then powered on my iPhone and then the iPad. No change on the contact info on the iPad.

I logged into icloud.com on my desktop, and there's no update on the "Contacts" in iCloud either.

In iCloud Settings on iCloud.com, I got under My Devices my iMac, my iPad, and my iPhone.

In the "Groups" on my iPhone Contacts, I got checked all three options "All Gmail" "All [my apple ID email]" and "All iCloud".

I don't know what more to do. Maybe I can call Apple Care since my iPad is only a few weeks old and see if they tell me anything?
 
OldCorpse said:
No luck :(

I checked "iCloud" on the iPhone, waited awhile, but nothing changed on the iPad. I then powered off my iPhone and powered off my iPad, and then powered on my iPhone and then the iPad. No change on the contact info on the iPad.

I logged into icloud.com on my desktop, and there's no update on the "Contacts" in iCloud either.

In iCloud Settings on iCloud.com, I got under My Devices my iMac, my iPad, and my iPhone.

In the "Groups" on my iPhone Contacts, I got checked all three options "All Gmail" "All [my apple ID email]" and "All iCloud".

I don't know what more to do. Maybe I can call Apple Care since my iPad is only a few weeks old and see if they tell me anything?
Click to expand...
Thats because the contacts you’ve previously added are still in gmail as that’s the account that was set as default.

As I said in my last post, to get the missing contacts syncing, you’ll either need to add the gmail account to the iPad, or move the gmail contacts to iCloud using the web interfaces.

Changing the default account means that any *new* contacts will sync.

With iCloud selected as the default account, try adding a new contact. That contact should sync with the iPad.
 
Last edited:
Wow, you are right. I created a new contact in the iPhone and it showed up immediately in the iPad. Now I've gotta get the rest in there :)

Thank you so much, ventmore, you've been super helpful!
 
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