Contacts not showing up on iPhone but in iCloud

Hi there HeatherVanK,

You'll want to start by making sure you have the account for those contacts turned on for your iPhone:

Turn Contacts on or off for an account

Want to add or remove all of the contacts from an account that you already set up? Just turn Contacts on or off for that account:

1. Go to Settings > Contacts > Accounts.

2. Tap the account that has contacts that you want to add or remove.

3. To add contacts, turn on Contacts. To remove contacts, turn off Contacts, then tap Delete from My iPhone.

Learn more here: Manage and delete contacts on your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support

Take care.

I have the same issue. That is, Contacts in iCloud on the web show all contact entries correctly. However, the iPhone's Contacts app is missing some entries.

The entries that are missing simply disappeared sometime over the 4/28/2023-4/30/2023 weekend. Text messages with those contacts suddenly changed from showing "contact name" to just "cell number".

First, I disconnected my contact management app (Contacts+) so there is no relationship with background updates or syncing with other services.

Second, I changed the default contact list in the iPhone contacts app several times (choosing between Exchange for work or iCloud for personal)

Neither the first nor second step made any difference.

Last, I tried the following (related to the response from Sparks0829 to the original post from HeatherVanK)-- which also did NOT resolve the issue:

1.) Went to Settings > iCloud > Show All > Contacts

2.) Slid the button to disconnect iCloud contacts from iPhone

3.) iPhone presented me the message "Turn Off Contacts: What would you like to do with the previously synced iCloud contacts on your iPhone?"-- "Keep on my iPhone" or "Delete from My iPhone"

4.) Selected "Delete from My iPhone"

5.) Confirmed that Contacts app on iPhone is now empty-- no contact entries at all.

6.) Rebooted iPhone

7.) Re-confirmed that Contacts app on iPhone is now empty-- no contact entries at all. Contacts app shows Lists: iPhone: All iPhone 0 > (i.e. no contacts in the phone)

8.) Went to Settings > iCloud > Show All > Contacts

9.) Slid the slider button over to connect iCloud contacts to the contacts app on iPhone

10.) Returned to Contacts app and watched the number of contacts in the All iCloud list slowly climb from zero to 1,515...

11.) re-opened All iCloud list, checked for the names that are shown in Contacts in iCloud on the web, but which were missing from Contacts app on iPhone...

All the original missing contract entries are still missing DESPITE still showing correctly on the iCloud Contacts, and despite erasing and re-syncing the iPhone with iCloud contacts twice.

Additional note-- the two times I tried the above I was met with the a message regarding "duplicates found" -- the first time it said there were 35 duplicates, the second time 16 duplicates found-- despite not merging anything between the two events.

So, contacts in iCloud is broken in some way...