An update for Android makes the phone numbers and emails that you have saved on your device disappear. Unless you activate a certain feature.
Android now runs on millions, if not billions, of phones and other devices. A recent update from Google Play now causes the phone numbers and emails that you have saved on your device to disappear. With this, Google, the company behind Android, hopes that all users will take the leap into the cloud and secure their data there.
If you do not want to lose your contacts, you must enable contact synchronization with the cloud. This is quite straightforward and can be done in a few steps.
What is different about this? Until now, there was the option to choose between the local storage of the device and the cloud. Google has disabled this with the latest update once you install it. Now you can only back up your contacts via the cloud.
How you can enable synchronization for your contacts
You can enable synchronization on your phone in three simple steps:
- Go to Contacts on your Android device, tap on your user profile picture, and select Contact Settings.
- Select the Google Contacts synchronization settings in this menu and then choose the synchronization status.
- Enable the option “automatically synchronize” here. This should place your contacts in the cloud as well.
What if I leave the function disabled? Our colleagues from 3Djuegos report that you cannot see your contacts if you do not enable synchronization with the cloud. Then they will be hidden by Android.
However, some manufacturers also offer their own options for backing up contacts. Samsung, for instance, offers to store your contacts via your Samsung account. Here, too, the data ends up on a server.
You cannot bypass the update, by the way. Google Play updates automatically as soon as you open Google Play on your phone. The app does not get updated like other apps through the Play Store.
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