# Recovering phone numbers from a SIM card
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovering-phone-numbers-from-a-sim-card/731772
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 19, 2015, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovering-phone-numbers-from-a-sim-card/731772 "2015-09-19T15:53:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2015, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovering-phone-numbers-from-a-sim-card/731772/1 "2015-09-19T15:53:31Z")
I broke my AT&T phone a few weeks ago, and Mrs. L.A. loaned me her old TracFone until my new Virgin phone came. I tried putting the SIM card from the Pantech phone into her LG (non-smart) phone, and got an error when I turned the phone on. Apparently TracPhone doesn’t like SIM cards from AT&T phones.
How can I get the phone numbers from the old SIM card?
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2015, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovering-phone-numbers-from-a-sim-card/731772/2 "2015-09-21T04:18:54Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#):
>
> I broke my AT&T phone a few weeks ago, and Mrs. L.A. loaned me her old TracFone until my new Virgin phone came. I tried putting the SIM card from the Pantech phone into her LG (non-smart) phone, and got an error when I turned the phone on. Apparently TracPhone doesn’t like SIM cards from AT&T phones.
>
> How can I get the phone numbers from the old SIM card?
Use a phone that uses standard SIM cards. Tracphone uses their own proprietary format. The card is the same, but the data is different.
They also lock the SIM card to the phone.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2015, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovering-phone-numbers-from-a-sim-card/731772/3 "2015-09-21T16:09:10Z")
Could I put it into my LG smartphone that is on Virgin?
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### Author:  [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovering-phone-numbers-from-a-sim-card/731772/4 "2015-09-21T17:11:31Z")
Are you sure the phone stores contacts on the SIM card? If you had a smartphone, it’s guaranteed that contacts would not be on the SIM. Even if you had a featurephone, a SIM can only store a few hundred contacts so most phones would store contacts in internal memory by default.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2015, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovering-phone-numbers-from-a-sim-card/731772/5 "2015-09-21T20:39:42Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#):
>
> Are you sure the phone stores contacts on the SIM card? If you had a smartphone, it’s guaranteed that contacts would not be on the SIM. Even if you had a featurephone, a SIM can only store a few hundred contacts so most phones would store contacts in internal memory by default.
The old phone was not a smartphone. It looks a bit like [this](http://www.amazon.com/Pantech-P7040-Unlocked-Keyboard-Warranty-Wine/dp/B0062FYYYA), only not as advanced. ISTR taking the SIM card for it out of my old Motorola flip phone, and the numbers were on it.
(Who has a few hundred contacts, anyway?)
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### Author:  [@seal\_cleaner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seal_cleaner)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2015, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovering-phone-numbers-from-a-sim-card/731772/6 "2015-09-21T23:39:15Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#):
>
> The old phone was not a smartphone. It looks a bit like [this](http://www.amazon.com/Pantech-P7040-Unlocked-Keyboard-Warranty-Wine/dp/B0062FYYYA), only not as advanced. ISTR taking the SIM card for it out of my old Motorola flip phone, and the numbers were on it.
>
> (Who has a few hundred contacts, anyway?)
Me, for one. Doesn’t seem that excessive, really.