Update: Dumb question? Phone swiped. New problems. Contacts

[SirStev0]

Update: The phone was stolen, I guess. Its been turned on and off a few times since its gone missing. The message to contact or turn into police for reward etc. has been ignored. I don't know why someone wants an iphone 4s with a broken screen.. but they do.
I am now using phone B (a iphone 5 a friend has given me). I would still love to get the old one back for the pictures, but have given up.
Its about time I wipe the old phone remotely, if I can. That doesnt really make much sense to me other than if it is every logged onto with wifi it will die.
I have the new(er) phone already set up and using, but did a clean reprogram because there was a ton of stuff on my old phone that was just not being used. I thought I could then pull off my contacts and notes from the back up individually, but apparently that is not a thing.
I have an itunes backup from about January that I can go back to for my old contacts and such. But I dont want the full restore. Is there a way to extract the contacts or whatever from the itunes backup without having to reset everything?

TLR (update): Gave up. Have replacement. Only want to add back contacts (is this possible?) by extracting data from itunes backup.





Long story short, on about a 3 mile trip from my house to the store and back, I lost my old iphone. Turns out "Find my iphone" only works if the phone is powered on. I'm one of the lucky ones who doesnt have a 'most recent location' pop up.

There is a lot of pictures of my new child on my phone. And, as luck would have it, I haven't backed them up.
I've torn apart my house and car, I walked up and down my street, and I have called every store in the area/parking area to see if someone turned it in.

Now, it makes zero sense to me that someone would steal a 4s with a crack in it.. but who knows.

My question is if I change over to a new phone like my old iphone 4s or an android I have laying around and in a couple weeks I find it on some shelf somewhere that I missed in my house destruction, will the lost iphone 4s still retain the data and pictures?

tl;dr - does a temporary replacement phone wipe out an existing phone's picture/data/etc?

Very much appreciate it. I can't seem to google an answer that satisfies me as far as its validity.

Also - on verizon's network. don't know if that matters to the question.

 

[TheStu]

So you're wondering if Phone A will wipe itself if you activate Phone B?

No... that's not a thing that happens. you can safely activate Phone B without worrying about the data on Phone A.

 

[SirStev0]

So you're wondering if Phone A will wipe itself if you activate Phone B?

No... that's not a thing that happens. you can safely activate Phone B without worrying about the data on Phone A.

Thanks.

My follow up is if Phone B is an iphone, will I be able to remotely wipe the Phone A should I not find it or something shady go on with it?
Does it stay attached to my Apple account or would the Phone B trump it and knock me out of "lost" mode?

Should I set up a different apple account for Phone B? Would that protect Phone A?

I a fairly confident at this point either phone A is on the side of the road somewhere and lost forever or it has found a deep dark hole in my house to hide until I give up on it.
I really hate to wipe it, but if I only have one chance to wipe it before activating Phone B, I guess I need to do it.

 

[SirStev0]

So interesting development. Decided to check one last time. Turns out about 5 hours ago, someone powered the fucker up but then shut it down. The radius "find my iphone" gives is huge, but it is within a few blocks of me. Closer to finding something.. Maybe.

But now I have the massive dilemma, Do I switch to Phone B so I have phone service while it is maybe found... and does that make it that I can no longer track the phone.

Drama Drama.

 

[TheStu]

Thanks.

My follow up is if Phone B is an iphone, will I be able to remotely wipe the Phone A should I not find it or something shady go on with it?
Does it stay attached to my Apple account or would the Phone B trump it and knock me out of "lost" mode?

Should I set up a different apple account for Phone B? Would that protect Phone A?

I a fairly confident at this point either phone A is on the side of the road somewhere and lost forever or it has found a deep dark hole in my house to hide until I give up on it.
I really hate to wipe it, but if I only have one chance to wipe it before activating Phone B, I guess I need to do it.

So interesting development. Decided to check one last time. Turns out about 5 hours ago, someone powered the fucker up but then shut it down. The radius "find my iphone" gives is huge, but it is within a few blocks of me. Closer to finding something.. Maybe.

But now I have the massive dilemma, Do I switch to Phone B so I have phone service while it is maybe found... and does that make it that I can no longer track the phone.

Drama Drama.

iPhone A (lost iPhone)
iPhone B (soon to be activated iPhone)


I don't know if there's a limit to how many iDevices you can have in FindMyiPhone, but it's more than 4 (the most I've ever had in there at once).

Also, you DO NOT, and SHOULD NOT, create a second AppleID. That is a path that leads to elephant size headaches down the road.

Activating B will NOT do anything at all to A. It will NOT boot it out of Find My iPhone, it will NOT remotely wipe it. And as it currently stands, if A was running iOS 7 or later, then it has an activation lock, and it cannot be activated by anyone but you, so there's an extra layer of safety there.

So you have put iPhone A into Lost Mode (where it displays a message with your name, number, and "please give this back, it's worthless to you")?


As a note for Future SirStev0, make sure that wifi backup is turned on, so that way at night when you plug in your phone (and it's connected to wifi) it will back itself up to iCloud automatically.

 

[Compman55]

Take it from me, backup your voicemails before activating your new phone. They may not be there and you cannot / will not get them back.

 

[SirStev0]

TLR (update): Gave up. Have replacement. Only want to add back contacts (is this possible?) by extracting data from itunes backup.

 

[TheStu]

TLR (update): Gave up. Have replacement. Only want to add back contacts (is this possible?) by extracting data from itunes backup.

You said the new phone is another iPhone, yes?

Plug it into your computer, restore from the backup of the old phone.

Once that's done...

TURN ON iCLOUD BACKUP
TURN ON WIFI BACKUP

 

[SirStev0]

You said the new phone is another iPhone, yes?

Plug it into your computer, restore from the backup of the old phone.

Once that's done...

TURN ON iCLOUD BACKUP
TURN ON WIFI BACKUP

My understanding is if I backup from the old phone everything comes back.. is that correct? I really only want the contacts back. Everything else (from that point) wasn't worth keeping.


I didnt really mention this in any other posts, because it wasn't all that relevent but just so I sound like a slightly less noob, I use my phone for a lot of work related things. Unfortunately, our corporation has major restrictions on 'personal storage and backup'. Even though it is a really really really annoying and stupid policy, I personally have tried to argue it but the head of tech here is a fucking luddite. His understanding of cyber security is a complete joke, and they are firmly entrenched in not allowing access to "cloud" backup due to the sensitivity of the information we handle (largely medical). I have also argued the point that they should therefore be required to give us a "company" phone and that also was dismissed. So as far as automated backup of any kind as long as I need to use my personal phone as a work tool, I don't have any option.. you know "because.. like.. hackers can access that" (actual quote).

EDIT: Also, I have neglected to thank you for the assist. I can't ever make sense out of anything apple writes. I feel like they are always telling me one thing and then once I do it, turns out that wasn't actually the option and fuck you cause there is no going back. So thanks again. Knew I would find someone with some experience that could make sense of it all on here.

 

[TheStu]

My understanding is if I backup from the old phone everything comes back.. is that correct? I really only want the contacts back. Everything else (from that point) wasn't worth keeping.

Correct, it will restore everything.

I want to say that there is an option in iTunes for Windows for it to sync your contacts to the built in Windows contacts manager, but I'm not 100% sure about that. This isn't a problem I've ever dealt with. I'm not at a Windows machine with iTunes right now, so I can't check.

Edit: yes, this is a thing that exists, see here (https://support.apple.com/kb/PH12317?locale=en_US). Start > "contacts", and look to see if they are there.

 

[SirStev0]

Correct, it will restore everything.

I want to say that there is an option in iTunes for Windows for it to sync your contacts to the built in Windows contacts manager, but I'm not 100% sure about that. This isn't a problem I've ever dealt with. I'm not at a Windows machine with iTunes right now, so I can't check.

Edit: yes, this is a thing that exists, see here (https://support.apple.com/kb/PH12317?locale=en_US). Start > "contacts", and look to see if they are there.

Will try it tonight. Thanks.

 

[SirStev0]

The saga continues.
I now have 475 some contacts on my windows contact bar.. and I can't find a way to export them all to .. anywhere. I can do them individually, but 475 is a lot of names.

Any solutions. It sounds like I should be able to make a comma seperated file ... but that doesnt seem to work at all.
The nightmare continues lol.