A change didn't reach an account
Check why an edit, merge or delete shows in ContactZapp but not in one of your accounts.
You edited, merged or deleted a contact in ContactZapp. One of your accounts doesn't show the change yet. Your change is saved in ContactZapp and in History.
Steps
- Open the contact. A status of Updating means "A change is being added to your accounts." Wait for it.
- Tap Sync details, then See all runs. Under Account updates, find the change.
- Queued or Updated: see Read the Sync log. A queued change reaches the account soon. Nothing to do.
- "{provider} is busy — retrying automatically", or "Couldn't reach {provider} — will retry automatically": nothing to do.
- "No longer needed" or "You stopped this change": the change was skipped.
- If the change is under Needs attention, tap Retry now, or Retry all. If retrying won't help, tap Open the contact or Stop syncing this change. See Read the Sync log.
- Check the account. In the contact's details, "Read-only — changes here aren't sent" means ContactZapp never writes to that account. A paused account gets the change when you resume it. See Pause or resume an account.
- If the account shows Reauthorize, see Reauthorize an account.
- If the contact is Frozen (plan limit), it's over your plan's contact limit. An edit is saved in ContactZapp and "is not sent to your accounts while this contact is over your plan limit". A merge reaches your accounts once the contact is within the limit.
What happens next
A change that is queued or retrying reaches the account without anything from you. A CardDAV account can take longer. See the linked answer on slow updates.
If something goes wrong
- You deleted a contact and an account still has it. A read-only account keeps its copy, because ContactZapp never writes to it. A paused account gets the deletion when you resume it. To bring the contact back, see Restore deleted contacts.
- "We couldn't retry this update. Try again in a moment." Tap Retry now again.
- "This changed since the list loaded, so we refreshed it." Check the list again.
Related questions
If I edit a contact here, where does the change go?
When you save an edit, ContactZapp keeps it, adds it to History, and sends it to each of your accounts that holds this contact and is two-way. Read-only accounts are never changed. A paused account gets the change when you resume it.
Two cases stay in ContactZapp only: a contact that is over your plan's contact limit, and a contact with no account connected yet. If the contact changed while you had the form open, we don't save over the newer version. A contact that is waiting for duplicate review can't be edited until you finish that review.
What happens if I delete a contact directly in a connected account?
At its next check of that account, ContactZapp sees the contact is gone. What happens next depends on Pass deletions on to the other accounts in Settings › Sync, which is on by default.
When it is on, the contact moves to Deleted in ContactZapp, and we delete it from your other two-way accounts. You can restore it from Deleted for 12 months. When it is off, your other accounts keep their copies. The contact shows as deleted in that account, and you can put it back there with Recreate on Google (or Microsoft, iCloud or CardDAV) in the contact's details.
Read-only accounts are never changed, so they keep their copy either way.
Why is the update to my CardDAV account taking so long to complete?
CardDAV has no way to update many contacts in one request. ContactZapp reads each contact and then sends its update, one contact at a time. We also keep a gentle pace, because CardDAV servers differ and most don't publish their limits. A large update to a CardDAV account can therefore take longer than the same update to Google or Microsoft. Open the Sync log to see which changes are queued, retrying or need attention.