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How To Recover iPhone Contacts, SMS & Notes from iTunes Backup?

Posted by Ben on July 8, 2010

Just incase if you have accidentally lost your iPhone contacts, photos, SMS or notes due to any reason and "Restore from Backup..." option in iTunes is also not working, you can still access and restore your iPhone's data as long as you have backup files saved on your hard drive. iTunes always backup your iPhone before syncing it with your PC / Mac. You can use iPhone Backup Extractor and DiskAid to restore the content you need on your jailbroken iPhone.

*Find download links at the end of post!

  1. Download *iPhone Backup Extractor for Mac.
  2. Download *DiskAid for Windows and Mac.
  3. Create a new folder on your desktop. I just named it "Jaxov".

    4. iPhone Data Recovery Requirements

  4. Double click on iPhone Backup Extractor to launch it and click on "Read Backups" button to automatically access the stored backups on your hard drive.

    5. iPhone Backup Extractor

  5. Select your device and click on "Choose" button.

    6. Choose iDevice

  6. iPhone Backup Extractor will show you the contents of selected backup. Choose "iOS Files" and click on the "Extract" button.

    7. iPhone Backup Contents

  7. iPhone Backup Extractor will prompt you to select the folder where it will extract the backup files. Choose the folder you created in step 3.

    8. Choose Extract Folder

  8. Full backup extraction will take 3 to 4 seconds.

    9. Extracting Backup

  9. Once done! Open the folder your desktop and navigate to iOS Files->Library. Here you will find all important data you need to restore including notes, SMS and address book which will contain your iPhone contacts.

    10. iPhone Backup Library

  10. Now open DiskAid and navigate to Root->User->Library. Here you will find same folders which you extracted in the previous step.

    11. DiskAid iPhone Backup

  11. Thats it! Just replace the AddressBook folder you found in step 9 with the one you found in step 10 using DiskAid. This will restore all of your contacts. Simply replace the other folders to restore the respective content.

Download DiskAid for Windows and Mac
Download iPhone Backup Extractor for Mac



  • Kevin

    Why not Total Saver from myphonedata.com ?
    I've used it and it works like charm.
    Also, it costs a mere $5.99 and it does it all - contacts, texts, notes, pictures, videos
    iphonebackupextractor costs a whopping $30!!!!

  • Nvn

    thx. you just saved my life

  • JEFF

    THANKYOU SO MUCH!!!!

  • sunnie

    I followed your instructions, but still don't see photos from the extracted material. You reference the address book, but what about finding photos- would they be under ios and library? thanks

  • hineko

    Must i jailbreak my phone in order to use Diskaid? is there any other ways to use do step 10 using another software?

    • http://jaxov.com/ Wolverine

      A jailbroken iPhone with "afc2add" installed through Cydia is a must!

  • Spamsalad

    Is there a PC version of the extractor?

    • http://jaxov.com/ Wolverine

      Yup! You can find it here.