Top 5 Fixes for iPhone Not Saving Contacts

One of the most important functions of your iPhone is to facilitate communication. This includes adding new contacts to your iPhone to quickly call or text them. But what if you add a new contact and your iPhone does not save it?

There’s no need to memorize the contacts or write them down on paper. This guide shares some useful tips for getting your iPhone to save contacts as before. So, let’s take a look.

1. Restart Your iPhone

Restarting your iPhone is often a quick and easy way to fix temporary issues. If it’s just a one-off glitch, this should fix it and save you a lot of time and effort.

For iPhone X or newer models, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button along with one of the volume buttons, and then drag the slider to your right to power off your iPhone. On older iPhones, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button until the slider appears. Then, use it to power off your iPhone.

After your iPhone shuts down completely, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button until the Apple logo appears to turn it back on.

After booting up your iPhone, try saving a contact again. To do so, open the Contacts app and tap the plus icon at the top-right corner. Enter the name, phone number, and other relevant information about the contact, and then tap Done at the top-right corner.

2. Check Contact Groups

The Contacts app on your iPhone allows you to arrange contacts into groups, making them easier to find. If you have saved a contact in your Gmail account, for example, and are viewing contacts in the iCloud list, the newly added contact will not appear. This may give the impression that the contact is not saved on your iPhone.

To view the newly added contact, open the Contacts app and tap Lists in the upper-left corner. Select All Contacts, and your newly saved contact should appear on this list.

3. Use the Phone or Contacts App

Are you using a third-party app such as WhatsApp to add contacts? While that is convenient, issues with these third-party apps can sometimes prevent your iPhone from saving newly added contacts. To avoid this, it is best to use the built-in Phone or Contacts app to add contacts on your iPhone.

If you can save contacts using the built-in apps, there may be an issue with the third-party app you were using previously. You can try updating or reinstalling the problematic app on your iPhone to resolve any issues with it.

4. Set iCloud as the Default Account for Contacts

By default, your iPhone saves all your contacts to your iCloud account. However, if you have previously set your iPhone to save contacts to a Gmail or Outlook account, issues with those services may cause problems. You can try setting your iCloud account as the default option for saving contacts and see if that resolves the issue.

Step 1: Open the Settings app and scroll down to tap on Contacts.

Step 2: Tap on Default Account and select iCloud from the resulting menu.

After completing the above steps, try saving a contact again and check if the issue is still there.

5. Disable and Enable Contact Sync

If your iPhone does not display contacts after you save them, it could be due to a problem with iCloud contact sync. To fix this, you can disable and re-enable iCloud contact sync on your iPhone. Here’s how you can go about it.

Step 1: Open the Settings app and tap on your name at the top.

Step 2: Tap on iCloud and select the Show All option in the following menu.

Step 3: Disable the toggle next to Contacts, wait for a few seconds, and then turn it back on.

Open the Contacts app after this and iCloud should start syncing your contacts again. After that, try adding a contact and your iPhone should save it without issues.

Avoid Contact Crisis

When you add a contact, you expect your iPhone to save it. It can be frustrating when you have problems with such basic tasks and can’t save new contacts on your iPhone. We hope that one of the tips above has helped and your iPhone can save new contacts as expected.