Extracting Contacts from a iPhone backup

monkeyfudge

Anyone managed to do this?

The iPhone itself is gone missing but I have the back up from iTunes. The owner of the phone doesn't plan on replacing the iPhone. Is there any handy way I can get the contacts out of the back up?

I've cracked open the backup and gotten the AddressBook.sqlitedb file, but it's a bit messy with the numbers and contact names being kept in separate tables.

phill106

I had the same problem myself, and while i dont know of an automatic way, the number on each page of the db corresponds with a contact, even though they are in a different sort order. So you would find the persons name on one page (lets say his id was 1) then on page where number is stored, look for the same Id and that will be his number. Tedious but works.
Confirm one or 2 right ones first to make sure before you do all the work though.

monkeyfudge

phill106 wrote: »

I had the same problem myself, and while i dont know of an automatic way, the number on each page of the db corresponds with a contact, even though they are in a different sort order. So you would find the persons name on one page (lets say his id was 1) then on page where number is stored, look for the same Id and that will be his number. Tedious but works.
Confirm one or 2 right ones first to make sure before you do all the work though.

Ha.. oh dear.... Was hoping it wouldn't come to that.

Basq

Concise instructions here MF.

http://geekyninja.com/archives/recover-data-contacts-sms-notes-from-the-iphone-backup-files/

monkeyfudge

basquille wrote: »

Concise instructions here MF.

http://geekyninja.com/archives/recover-data-contacts-sms-notes-from-the-iphone-backup-files/

Okay. That seems to fill that final last gap. Will give a go this evening.

Basq

Am fairly proficient in SQL so if you need help, give me a shout!

monkeyfudge

Okay.

I've run the "select ABPerson.first,ABPerson.last,ABMultiValue.value from ABPerson,ABMultiValue where ABMultiValue.record_id=ABPerson.ROWID" query in SQLite.

That throws back all the contact names and numbers in exactly the format I want them in. But I can't copy the list out of there, and the .output backup.txt command doesn't seem to be doing anything for me.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

Basq

Will give it a shot when I get home from work.

Will keep you posted.

monkeyfudge

Cheers.