How to Back Up Your iPhone or iPad

How to Back Up Your iPhone or iPad

Quick Links

• Why Back Up Your iPhone?

• How to Back Up Your iPhone With iCloud

• How to Back Up Your iPhone to Your PC or Mac

• Should You Back Up Your iPhone Using Your Computer or iCloud?

• Take the time to run regular backups on your iPhone to avoid losing important data like photos and customization settings.
• iCloud is a convenient backup option, but you will likely need to purchase more storage.
• Backing up to your computer using iTunes or Finder is faster to restore as long as your PC has free space, but requires manual backup initiation.

If you lose or break your iPhone, you have two options when it comes to your data: restore from a backup or start from scratch. Having a backup is a much more pleasant option, so you should take the time to run regular backups on your iPhone. Here’s how, along with the specifics of each method.

While we focus on iPhone here, backing up an iPad works in the same way.

Why Back Up Your iPhone?

While replacing your phone is an expense, the irreplaceable data that lives on your smartphone is much more valuable. Without a backup, you could lose treasured pictures and videos, unsynced notes, and important data your apps use.

Setting up your device anew and trying to remember exactly how you had it configured is a chore. You’re much better off spending that time making a backup for peace of mind. Then if you lose your phone or suffer a botched update, you can restore your iPhone backup and everything will be like it used to.

The more often you back up your important files, the less you’ll lose if the worst happens. Having a regular backup strategy is thus a must for any iPhone or iPad owner.

How to Back Up Your iPhone With iCloud

Here’s how to check if you already have iCloud backup enabled on your device, and start using it if not:

1. Open Settings and tap your name at the top of the screen, followed by iCloud.
2. Under Device Backups, tap iCloud Backup.
3. If Back Up This iPhone is enabled, you’ll see the last backup timestamp under Back Up Now.
4. If you aren’t already backing up to iCloud, toggle the Back Up This iPhone slider to enable the feature.
5. Tap Back Up Now to run a manual backup, or wait for it to happen automatically when your phone is online, charging, and locked.
6. You can enable Back Up Over Cellular if you aren’t worried about data charges and want your phone to back up even when it’s not on Wi-Fi.

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Unless you’ve paid for more iCloud storage, backing up your iPhone to iCloud is likely not a viable option. Apple only provides 5GB of free iCloud space, which is almost certainly less than what you want to back up on your phone. If you see a warning that you don’t have enough iCloud space for a backup, you’ll need to pay for more storage, create free space in iCloud, or back up your iPhone to your computer instead.

To see what’s taking up your cloud storage space, go back to the iCloud menu and you’ll see a breakdown at the top. Choose Manage Account Storage to get a more detailed overview of how much iCloud storage your apps are using; select one to manage and delete its data. Choose Change Storage Plan if you decide to buy more.

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To customize what app data your device includes in its backup, go to Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud > Manage Account Storage > Backups. Tap your device and you’ll see all the items it’s backing up to iCloud. Toggle an app’s slider Off to exclude it and save some space.

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How to Back Up Your iPhone to Your PC or Mac

To make a backup using your computer:

1. On Windows, download and open iTunes. On a Mac, open Finder.
2. Connect your iPhone to your computer with a Lightning or USB-C cable as applicable. Accept the security prompt on your phone if this is the first time you’ve connected it to your computer.
3. In iTunes, click the device icon in the top-left corner of the window when it appears (below). In Finder, select your phone under Locations on the left sidebar.
4. On the Summary (iTunes) or General (Finder) page, click Back Up Now under Manually Back Up and Restore, then wait for the process to complete.

If you want your backup to include sensitive data (which is generally a good idea), select Encrypt local backup and set a password for it. This is an extra step, but lets you retain saved passwords, data in Health, website and call history, and Wi-Fi network information. If you don’t encrypt the backup, this information is not included.

Be sure to keep the encryption password somewhere safe, like a password manager, as you’ll be locked out of this backup if you lose it.

Finally, if you plan to back up your iPhone this way regularly, select This Computer under Automatically Back Up. This will make iTunes/Finder take backups when you connect your iPhone to your computer.

In case you don’t have enough space on your computer to store your iPhone backups, consider buying one of the best portable SSDs to easily add more space.

Should You Back Up Your iPhone Using Your Computer or iCloud?

Now that you know the process for both iPhone backup options, which one should you use? There are pros and cons to each.

Backing Up Your iPhone to iCloud

iCloud is a set-and-forget backup solution, but as we saw, will almost certainly require you to purchase more iCloud storage to properly use.

Once enabled, iCloud backups take place automatically when your phone is connected to power, online via Wi-Fi (or cellular data if you choose), and not currently in use. For most people, this means backups take place overnight while your device charges.

Your initial iCloud backup will take a while since your iPhone has to upload everything to the server. Future backups only transfer new or modified data, so they take relatively little time. If you ever stop using iCloud backup, your final backup is stored for 180 days before it’s deleted.

iCloud backups cover the following:

• App data
• Apple Watch backups
• iOS settings
• Your Home Screen and app layout
• Content in Messages (including both iMessage and SMS texts), if not already synced with iCloud
• Photos and videos, if not already synced with iCloud
• Your purchase history from all Apple services
• Ringtones
• Visual voicemail password

Backing up your iPhone to iCloud skips anything you already store in iCloud, such as contacts, reminders, and iCloud Photos. You can check what you have stored in iCloud at Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud; tap Show All under Apps Using iCloud.

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Backing Up Your iPhone to iTunes/Finder

Using your computer to back up is less convenient than iCloud, but it’s faster to restore and you’re only limited by the storage space on your computer. Like with iCloud, the initial backup is large and takes a while, but future backups only copy changed data.

The biggest problem with relying on iTunes/Finder backups is remembering to run the process manually. If you rarely connect your iPhone to your computer, you’ll need to get into the habit of doing so. Otherwise, your latest backup could be weeks or months old when something happens.

Depending on your computer, having enough storage to accommodate the size of your iPhone backup can also be a worry.

Backing up to a computer includes “almost all of your device’s data and settings,” according to Apple. Here’s what it does not include:

• Content from the App Store and iTunes Store, along with any PDFs you downloaded into Apple Books
• Anything you synced from Finder/iTunes, like imported MP3s or videos
• Data already stored in iCloud, like iCloud Photos and iMessage texts
• Face ID/Touch ID info
• Apple Pay data
• Mail files

If you want to back up your info from Activity, Health, and Keychain, you’ll need to make an encrypted backup, as explained above.

Note that backing up your iPhone to iTunes or Finder is not the same as syncing your device to iTunes. Backing up makes a copy of your files for safekeeping. Syncing makes sure that the music, shows, photos, and other media you have stored in iTunes are the same as what’s on your iPhone.

Any backup is better than no backup. For most people, we recommend backing up in iCloud because it protects your data without you having to think about it. A few dollars per month is a small price to protect irreplaceable photos and preferences that could take hours to restore.

If you can’t pay for iCloud storage, then make sure to create regular iTunes/Finder backups instead. For complete peace of mind, you should back up to iCloud regularly as well as make periodic computer backups in case of emergency.