Restore Google Contacts

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You can restore your Google contacts in case they have been accidentally deleted or altered. To accomplish this, sign in to your Google account, access your contact list, choose a restoration period, and restore. Afterwards, it’s a good idea to make a backup copy of your contact list. Google can only restore contact data reaching up to 30 days back, so if you wait too long after making any changes, you may not be able to successfully restore.[1]

Steps

Restoring Google Contacts

  1. Go to Google Contacts and sign into your Google Account. Enter your Google email and password and click “Sign in”. You will be taken the contacts profile of your account.
    • You can also access this page by signing into Gmail and selecting “Contacts” from the “Gmail” menu in the top left corner.
  2. Click "Restore Contacts". This option is listed in the left sidebar and will open a popup window to select a restoration period.
    • If this option does not appear, click “More” in the left sidebar to expand the menu. The menu is expanded by default.
  3. Choose a restoration period from the list. You will need to choose a period before the changes to your contacts were made (e.g. if changes were made yesterday, you should choose a restoration period at least 2 days in the past).
    • You can restore from a custom period if you do not want to use the default periods, but these are still limited to the 30 days in the past.
  4. Click "Restore". This button is at the bottom of the restoration period window and will revert your contacts to the state they were in at the selected restoration period.

Exporting a Backup

  1. Go to Google Contacts and sign into your Google Account. Enter your Google email and password and click “Sign in”. You will be taken the contacts profile of your account.
  2. Click “Export”. This button is listed in the left sidebar.
    • Exporting is currently unsupported by the Google Contacts preview (enabled by default) and will automatically redirect you to the old version of Google Contacts.
  3. Open the “More” menu and select “Export”. This menu is located just below the search bar. An export popup window will appear.
  4. Choose an export setting. By default, “Export All” is selected. You can also choose to export only specific groups or specific contacts.
    • In order to export only specific contacts, you must select the checkboxes next to each contact name you want to export before selecting the “Export” option from the menu.
  5. Select the file format you for your contacts export. Google CSV is the format for import into another Google account (This is the best choice as a Google account backup). You can also choose Outlook CSV or vCard if you use Microsoft or Apple products frequently.
  6. Click “Export”. A save dialog will appear.
  7. Choose a save location and click “Save”. A backup file with your current Google contacts will be saved to the selected location.

Importing a Backup

  1. Go to Google Contacts and sign into your Google Account. Enter your Google email and password and click “Sign in”. You will be taken the contacts profile of your account.
  2. Click “Import…”. This button is listed in the left sidebar and will open a window to select an import source.
  3. Click “Choose File”. This will open a window to browse for the contacts file you created when you exported.
  4. Select a contacts file and press “Open”. The file will appear in the import window.
  5. Click “Import”. This will import the contacts from the contacts file into your Google contacts list.

Video

Tips

  • At the moment, restoring contacts cannot be performed through the mobile apps, and must be done through the website.
  • Keep your contacts export file in a safe place, like an external backup drive.
  • Export a contacts file regularly if you frequently update your contacts.

Warnings

  • Even using a custom period, Google only backs up contact information 30 days back. You must perform the operation within this time frame or make your own backup before it becomes permanently lost.

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1069522?hl=en
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