[davyk31]

I have been a bit stupid and need some help. Both wife and I have Iphones, mine was upgraded ages back to IOS5 with Icloud backup but her has'nt yet. Decided last night to upgrade hers so she would get the backup.

I upgraded it via Itunes on the laptop, let it do its backup etc but problem is that I only had my login for Itunes and used this. Got her phone up and going but when I looked at her contacts it had all mine mixed with hers. In the meantime it had started an Icloud backup which I later cancelled, again using my login. Guess I reckoned the system would know the difference between our phones but that doesn't seem to be the case. I went through her phone deleting my contacts, then when I went back to mine all I had was her contacts, mine were all gone.

Reset my phone and restored last backup which was last weekend but again only her contacts appear. went back to the previous backup which would be fine, this is where it gets odd, when I first restore it lists all my contacts then after a few seconds some kind of sync happens and mine all go and are replaced by her contacts. There doesn't seem to be any way of stopping this happening.

Anyone able to offer any help. All my emails and calendar are there ok. They are not Outlook contacts by the way.

[davyk31]

Anyone any thoughts ........ have read about a few others having this issue but no answers.

I am not in Apple support, is it possible to pay for this as a one off to get a solution?

[Frobius]

Pretty sure that of you go into settings > iCloud, you can turn off contacts and other stuff sync. Sounds like you need to make sure your mrs' phone is reset to her account and vice versa too.

[davyk31]

Thanks. Yes hers is now on own account. I have managed to get all my contacts after restore to a week old backup. Got contacts turned off and wifi before it synced her cloud contacts back to mine.

What should I do now, I have my contacts on my phone, contacts in iCloud are turned off. If I now do an iCloud backup does that include the contacts or are they left out as switched off. If they do backup and it stays correct do I then switch contacts back on?

[rogerxp]

I can't help with this problem except to say I'm pretty sure you can pay a one-off fee to Apple to get support. I've done this I'm sure before and the cost wasn't much - £20/30 or something. Might be worth checking with them if you're still struggling.

[davyk31]

Have this issue more or less sorted, got all my contacts back. Currently I have contacts turned off on Icloud, I haven't yet done a new backup to Icloud, if I do a backup with contacts off does that include them in the backup or not. I don't want to turn them on until I have a backup because it will then copy all my wife's contacts onto my phone and wipe mine.

[Mud]

go to icloud.com on your computer, log in and see what contacts are in the contacts app.

If you are happy with them, then you can turn the sync back on.

[davyk31]

Icloud contact are all just my wifes

[Mud]

Then delete them all so there are no contacts and then when you turn on syncing it should sync all the contacts from your phone.

Keep a backup to computer as well, so you have something which you can recover if needs be.

[davyk31]

Cheers mate, deleted all contacts on cloud, switched on sync and its all good now.

So what is the best means to backup to my laptop on a regular basis, is it via Itunes or something else. I really have very little info on the phone except for about 100 contacts that I really don't want to loose.

[Mud]

Just do the odd backup via iTunes onto your computer, that way if things do go seriously wrong, there is a local backup (imagine if Apple lost everything on iCloud for example and your phone crashed and you lost everything too)

There are a few bits of software out there which can extract things from the local backup as well so you are double covered that way.

[makkan00]

Originally Posted by Mud

Just do the odd backup via iTunes onto your computer, that way if things do go seriously wrong, there is a local backup (imagine if Apple lost everything on iCloud for example and your phone crashed and you lost everything too)

There are a few bits of software out there which can extract things from the local backup as well so you are double covered that way.

^^^
What he said.
Also just to be on safe side, merge your contacts on iphone to Microsoft outlook.
It is additional back up.
Also by doing that, if you change to any other brand (android, nokia), you can export all of your contacts to those phones as well.