BACK UP YOUR iOS DEVICE
Protect your personal data and settings
IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes
YOU WILL LEARN You will learn the backup options for your device
YOU’LL NEED You will need an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch; a Mac
There are two ways to back up the data on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. You can back up to iCloud, or you can back up locally to your Mac.
With an iCloud backup, your backups can be accessed from anywhere you can get a Wi-Fi connection. The backups are always encrypted to keep your data secure, and you don’t need to remember to repeatedly back up your stuff: it can all happen automatically.
Unfortunately, the 5GB you get free with your iCloud account is hilariously small, so you’ll need a paid iCloud storage plan – especially if you have multiple devices to back up. Local backups are stored on your Mac, so you’re only limited by the size of its hard drive or SSD. Transfers are usually much faster. But you need to remember to actually do the backup and to turn on encryption to keep your data safe: encryption is switched off by default.
What isn’t backed up
With a local backup, data and settings are copied but iTunes and App Store purchases, PDFs downloaded to Apple Books, data already stored in iCloud such as photos and messages, and Apple Mail data are not. Note: if you don’t encrypt your backup, your Activity, Health and Keychain data won’t be backed up either.
It’s a similar story with iCloud. It doesn’t back up existing iCloud data such as photos, messages, calendars, SMS messages and so on, and it doesn’t copy iCloud Music Library or App Store content. Carrie Marshall
1 Enable iCloud
iCloud backups are easy to set up on any iOS/iPadOS device. In this example we’ll enable it for our iPad. To do that, we’ll go into Settings and then tap on our username in the top left. This brings up the iCloud page you can see here.
2 Turn backups on
Scroll down the iCloud page to see an option for iCloud Backup. Tap on it and you’ll see the toggle: green means iCloud backup is on, tap it if greyed out. With iCloud backups enabled, this page will show you when the last backup was done.
3 Connect to your Mac
To make a local backup, you’ll need a wired connection to your Mac. Devices such as iPads draw a lot of power so don’t worry if you see this message when you connect: it’s your Mac saving energy by disabling other connected devices.
4 Trust your iPad
You’ll now find your device in the removable drives bit of Finder, or in iTunes if you’re on macOS 10.14 or earlier. If you haven’t connected your Mac to this device before you’ll be asked to make it a trusted device. To do that, click on Trust.
5 Trust your Mac
Now you’ll need to go to your iPad or iPhone and click on Trust there too. You’ll be asked to enter your device’s unlock code to proceed; if you don’t know it then you won’t be able to continue with the connection process.
6 Bring them together
Depending on the version of macOS you have, you’ll either see this screen in Finder or the sync screen in iTunes. As far as backups are concerned there’s no real difference between the way it works in Finder and the way it works in iTunes.
7 Set the backup method
On the main page for your iPad or iPhone, you’ll see a section marked Backups. If your device uses iCloud, the first option will be selected here. To change it, click on ‘Back up all the data on your iPad/iPhone to this Mac’.
8 Encrypt everything
Encrypting your backup means nobody else can restore from it without knowing your password – if you choose this option, make sure you keep a note of the password. You’ll be asked again for your device’s unlock code too.
9 Back it up
Click on Back Up Now and your Mac will start copying your data. When done, you’ll see a colour-coded chart, which lets you know how the storage on your device is being used. To restore from a backup, click Restore Backup.