The issue of contacts showing as phone numbers only has been creating havoc on iOS for a long time now. When this issue happens, it appears that all of your contacts have been deleted with the contact names not visible in any phone call logs or messages, with phone numbers in place of the contact names. The issue is usually due to a simple error and can be fixed easily. Let’s take a look at how to fix the contact names not showing and appearing as numbers in iOS.
1. Reboot Your iPhone
The simplest solution to such an issue is to restart your iPhone. This usually fixes the missing contacts’ names. Do note that rebooting helps to fix other issues too, such as Apple Pay problems.
To reboot your phone, you can either power off and then power on as you would usually do or do a hard reboot.
To hard reboot or force restart your iPhone, follow these steps:
Force Restart All iPhones without Home Buttons (iPhone X+)
1. Press and release the Volume Up button.
2. Press and release the Volume Down button.
3. Press and hold the Power button.
4. Keep holding the Power/Sleep button until you see the Apple logo appear on the screen. This shows that your iPhone has successfully restarted.
Force Restart All iPhones with a Home Button
Press and hold the Power and Home buttons simultaneously until you see the Apple logo on the screen. This will let you know that your device has restarted.
Once your iPhone has successfully restarted, relaunch the Phone and Messages apps, and you should see the contact information restored and visible as normal.
Another possible reason for the contact names not appearing on your Phone and Messages apps is that iCloud Contacts in the iOS Settings is not enabled. This can happen if you recently enabled iCloud Contacts, then disabled it later.
To fix it, follow these steps:
1. Go to the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Tap on your iCloud ID on the top of the screen followed by tapping on iCloud.