Transferring files from your old iPhone to a new iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus isn’t difficult, but after a reader emailed about the many, many hours he expected to wait for the old-to-new iPhone transfer process to complete, I realized that his experience has become more common — even though it’s not necessary. Years ago, iTunes was the only (and fairly straightforward) way to transfer one iPhone’s contents to another. But now, between iCloud, larger device capacity sizes, and iTunes encryption options, there are certainly ways to turn a simple process into a day-long ordeal.
This quick How-To guide is designed to save you a wasted day by helping you select the best options in iTunes and get most of the work done ahead of time. I’ve used this process more times than I can count, and beyond working perfectly each time, it requires far fewer hours than relying on iCloud…
Step 0: Ideally, Start With A Device That’s Running iOS 9
One point to make before I go further: yes, you can conceivably start this process today. If you complete Step 1 right now, you’ll be ready to begin updating your new iPhone pretty quickly after you receive it. But ideally, you should update your old iPhone to iOS 9 before relying on the backup to work with your new iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, which will arrive with iOS 9 installed. iOS 9 officially releases on September 16.
Step 1: Perform A Double Backup Of Your iPhone To iTunes, Not iCloud
There are two ways to back up your iPhone: iTunes or iCloud. Yes, iCloud is convenient: incremental backups tend to take place completely wirelessly at night when your phone is recharging, and you can restore your iPhone from any place where you have a Wi-Fi connection. But iCloud is also exceptionally slow, both for full initial backups and full device restores. It is the slowest possible way to transfer the contents of one (large) iPhone to another, and the primary reason for the reader email I mentioned above. Even if you’re an iCloud subscriber, my advice is to avoid restoring backed up content to a new iPhone from iCloud unless it’s absolutely necessary — like you absolutely can’t get access to a computer.
The fastest way to transfer your iPhone’s contents to another device is to connect your iPhone to your computer, open iTunes, and go to the iPhone’s tab alongside the other icons (as shown above). Under the left bar, you’ll see Settings tabs including Summary, Apps, Music, Movies, and other categories. Select Summary if it’s not already selected.
Under Backups, you’ll have the choice between “iCloud” and “This computer.” Pick your computer, and make sure you choose Encrypt iPhone backup. That’s a major time-saving, hassle-saving step that you’ll only truly appreciate once you’ve tried it: restoring from an encrypted backup means you don’t have to enter passwords over and over again during the restoration process.
Once the dot and the check are selected, hit the Back Up Now button. You may or may not see a prompt that asks if you want to back up all of your downloaded content to your iTunes library — if so, choose yes and back it all up. At that point, the backup process could take minutes or an hour. Once that’s done, and Latest Backup shows the current date (and a recent time), do it again. If you didn’t see the downloaded content prompt before, you’ll see it now, and should say yes. This double backup process guarantees that everything on your old iPhone is sitting on your computer, waiting for your new device to arrive.
Step 2: Keep Using Or Properly Wipe Your Old iPhone
Once your old iPhone has been backed up as discussed above, you’re ready to either wipe it clean for resale or keep using it until your new phone arrives. If you want to keep using it, be sure to do at least one last backup of your old phone before connecting your new phone to iTunes — I typically repeat the two-backup process, which takes only a few minutes since it’s incremental.
If you want to wipe your old iPhone, the easiest route is iOS 9’s Settings app under General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings. This will give you the option to turn off Activation Lock, Apple’s security feature that links your iPhone to your iCloud account (and makes it locatable via Find My iPhone). Once you’ve disabled Activation Lock and erased your phone, it’s ready to resell, but there may still be traces of it in your iTunes and iCloud accounts. I’ve put together a comprehensive guide to completely removing the iPhone from your Apple accounts here.
Step 3: Use iTunes To Place Your Encrypted Backup On Your New iPhone
This is the easiest part of the process. Your new iPhone will arrive blank and ready for the old iPhone backup to be installed. Without even touching the iPhone’s screen, you can plug it directly into your computer, then load iTunes, and be presented with a Welcome to Your New iPhone screen. Choose “restore from this backup,” select your latest backup file, and let iTunes work its magic. After placing your personal data and settings on the iPhone, iTunes will restart it and then begin to restore all of your apps and media files one by one. No matter how long this one-time sync takes, the process will be faster than with iCloud.
Relatively few things will need to be set up directly on the iPhone if you chose an encrypted backup. You may be asked once each for your iCloud and/or iTunes passwords after the first round of restoration is taking place, solely to make sure that you’re authorizing the device to run all of your previously backed-up apps and use all of your iCloud content, but this process will be painless by comparison with the unencrypted backup. You’ll need to set up both Touch ID and Apple Pay directly on the device, as those settings do not transfer from one iPhone to another.
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Could someone please confirm this:
If you have an Apple Watch that you want to link to your new phone, you need to disconnect it from your old phone first (By going into Settings->General->Reset) which will force one final watch backup to your phone before it disconnects.
Then, you can back up your phone as described here, which will carry your Apple Watch backup with it. then, when you have your new phone up and running, connect it to your Watch, and it should ask you to restore your Watch from the backup that you just made.
That sounds about right, though it bears mention that the process may become a little more complex due to watchOS 2’s release timing – you may want to be sure that your Watch is updated to watchOS 2 before you do that last backup, and begin the phone transfer process. In any case, you’ll lose Apple Pay associations made for both the iPhone and Watch, and will need to set them up again on both devices.
Also make sure that you are using an encrypted iTunes Backup or through iCloud, because else the Health Data, Steps, Activities will not be transferred.
Yes … this is good advice! I lost health data when I received a replacement iPhone earlier this year, and I didn’t understand why.
your iPhone does not make incremental backups of your watch
if you want to back up your watch, you must unpair it from the iPhone
only when it is unpaired, does your apple watch get backed up
http://airmore.com/ Without restriction for iOS 9 and iTunes 12.3, it facilitates the transfer process with ease
http://airmore.com/
What does “Double-sync” mean?
I would add the iTunes computer way still is about a 2-hour process for a 128 GB iPhone.
Otherwise, great article! You would be surprised by how many people, myself included, who may be experts at certain tasks are clueless with some of the most basic tasks. For example, I still cannot figure out iCloud Drive or how the iPhoto Library really works in iCloud (even though I prefer having my photos on my local devices)… Yeah… I know!
I think Double sync means to sync it twice in a row with iTunes so you have two recent backups, just in case the first one is corrupt for some reason.
Backup, then backup again. I’ll clarify in the piece. And yes, it’s a 2-hour process for a big iPhone (or iPad), but that’s _nothing_ by comparison with iCloud, which could take a day!
I think what you are trying to say is to perform a back up and then perform a second back up to be safe. So, you should offer the best way to rename the second back up, with an explanation of how to access it to make the change, i.e. “iPhone Backup -B”.
If the intent is to just back up twice, I would say, “back up twice (to be safe)”.
No, that’s not correct. I’m advising a “full” device backup, then a second pass to update that backup to make sure it’s complete. This is solely because iTunes sometimes doesn’t completely back up a device on the first pass, not to have a redundant backup of the same contents twice.
It’s a nice article. Sometimes you use iTunes or iCloud to transfer backups, you just don’t want to transfer all the messages or photos to another phone, because you can save some storage. I think it’s not so good on this. So I find some transfer tools which can transfer files between computer and iPhone, even iPhone and iPhone. And I find a software called FonePaw iOS Transfer which really can transfer files which I want. It will cost you a little. But I think it deserves. It’s a nice experience.
Whenever I have had to restore an iphone or ipod from a backup, I find that none of my music has transferred to the device once it is restored. Can someone please chime in if I am I doing something wrong or is this a normal operation when restoring from a backup? Its such a time consuming task to drag the music I had on the device before the restore back onto it after its been restored. Thank you.
If that’s happening to you, it helps to have all of your device’s music saved in one mega playlist (“All iPhone Music Playlist”) so you can just re-sync it easily. There are now so many different ways to put music on an iPhone (iTunes sync, iCloud Music Library, iTunes Match) that there’s no one easy answer. But having a playlist with everything and just dragging it over tends to make things simpler.
Same trick works with (and is basically necessary for) the Apple Watch, where you choose a playlist to sync from the iPhone to the Apple Watch – this happens in the background once the Watch is connected to power.
Good tip on the playlist.. will give it a try! TY
iOS backups only backup ‘stuff that’s on that device only’, meaning it doesn’t backup media you already have on your Mac. That means that music, photos are restored only by syncing the device with iTunes, but stuff like apps and iMessages are restored from backup. And to refine further: apps aren’t backed up at all, the backup merely remembers which apps you have on your phone and will be restored from either the App Store or local iTunes copies. Data within the apps (ie Nike+ Running) are restored from backup.
Of course, this is all just from the top of my head…
Each app has the option of storing data in a location that is backed up or in a location that is not backed up. The idea is that critical non-replaceable data should be in a backed up location, while data that can easily be recreated should be stored in a location that is not backed up. The reason for this is to keep the data consumed by the backups to a minimum (especially important for iCloud backups).
Probably the music is not being backed up, which is why it is gone when you restore from a backup.
The same is true, for example, with games that download level information from the internet. After a backup, the first time you run that game it will re-download all of the level data.
I’m on iOS 9.1 Public Beta. Would this backup work with my new iPhone 6s & iOs 9.0?
I’m on that beta too. 99% sure it works indirectly. That is, when you get your new iPhone, THAT will have to be upgraded to the same software level. Then it should work, unless there’s a bug in the beta software. The general rule is that you can restore an old backup to a later iOS level, but not the other way around.
I had 9.1 on my iPad Air and have received my iPad Mini 4. You *can’t* use the backup of a 9.1 device to install on a 9 device, as I sadly found. The reason is 9.1 is no longer available. Luckily, I did an archive backup when I installed the 9 beta. I could install that, which was a pain, as I had to reinstall apps that I had installed since making the archive backup. But, better than having to completely reinstall everything.
Yeah, Apple’s never allowed backups from newer versions of iOS to be restored to older versions. You can restore a backup from your old device to your new one as long as they’re both running the same OS, in this case 9.1
I’ve always backed up over USB with iTunes, but after getting so many questions from friends wanting to know if iCloud would work as well I thought I’d try it out myself. My 128GB iPhone is 50% full, and my iCloud backup is around 8GB. It always backs up just fine, but I’ve never been able to successfully restore an iCloud backup. Yes yes, fast WiFi connection, fast Internet access – doesn’t matter, it never restores successfully. You?
I have seen successful iCloud restores, but there always seem to be weird hiccups. Like getting asked 50 times to enter an App Store password, or having apps state outright that they are failing to restore, or other weird glitches. I stopped using iCloud for backups after a bunch of problems like these, and thankfully never got to the stage where I had to go through and [painfully] restore a 128GB device that way.
The one place where iCloud completely rules is if you have very little content on your device and are picking up a new/replacement iPhone at an Apple Store. You can connect to the Store’s Wi-Fi and get your contacts, emails, and calendars re-synced before heading out of the Store. Otherwise, with big backups, iTunes is the best way to go.
Unfortunately with iOS 9 apps won’t be synced after that backup is restored, but will be downloaded from appstore slowding down all the process
the is the most comprehensive guide i have ever seen, it even told you to encrypt your backup so your secure keychain can be restored on to a new
device! 4 stars! nice job! a lot of people think iCloud keychain keeps wifi passwords , but ir does not seem to
the only other thing i would add is to click on “transfer purchases” on iTunes ( click on file, devices, your iPhone, transfer purchases) this will make sure
anything you bought on the iPhone is put back into iTunes. this also makes sure that all the apps you have updated on your phone get put back in iTunes as well.
I’ve seen it a lot. you backup your iPhone and sync, and theres still like 30 apps in iTunes that are older versions, and transfer purchases makes sure this does not happen
Something else worth mentioning is if you’re transferring a lot of purchases and/or you have apps that are not on your computer (or haven’t been updated to their current version), it’ll be much faster to download them in iTunes and perform any app updates prior to backup/sync. Since the app appears on your computer, it only needs to transfer the app data.
I’ve had instances where it took _forever_ to backup large apps from my phone before a migration. I had a thought and tested downloading/updating the apps directly to my computer. I saw a huge bump in transfer speed and a decreased overall backup time.
Katie Floyd makes a great point at http://katiefloyd.com/blog/creating-a-comprehensive-ios-backup-strategy that it’s safer for most people to leave the setting configured to back up to iCloud. Then you can always plug in to iTunes and click the “Back Up Now” button to get your manual iTunes backup completed. You get the best of both worlds this way. The instructions above, while great, may result in people’s phone not getting backed up regularly because it effectively disables iCloud backups for that device.
Hey Jeremy. Thanks for these steps. I would, however, like to point out the step you listed to “select your computer” under backups instead of iCloud. What this does is change which service/device automatically backs up. So if you choose computer, the phone will no longer automatically back up to iCloud.
I think this would could cause issues down the line if the person forgets to back up to their computer.
Thanks again.
Restoring from iCloud works just fine. I use it for myself and all 9 other people on my plan. It is ridiculous to say you should only use it as a last resort. Using iTunes is so 2007.
I’ve been using this process for a few generations of iPhones. With my family, I have 10 devices on my plan in total.
One thing to consider is that this is a GREAT way to go. For a few generations. After a while, the backup — according to the Genius Bar folks — accumulates buggy issues. If your app crashes internally, you don’t always notice. If it leaves behind status info that affects later execution, you get a slower phone and poorer battery life. I was told to occasionally set up a device as a new iPhone and take the hit of restoring everything slowly. Most things sync, but not everything, so it’s quite the sacrifice to build up a new phone from scratch … :(((
Jeremy, thanks for the tips. Question: I am upgrading from an iPhone 4s running on iOS 8.1.2 that I plan to keep solely for the purpose of one App. If I download iOS 9 the App isn’t going to work (The creator abandoned it years ago so it hasn’t been updated). Do you think I am going to have issues if I try a restore to my new iPhone 6s? Thanks!
Yes. You’re hosed. The new iPhone will have iOS 9. :(
You may have issues. I had a TERRIBLE time upgrading my iPhone 5s and several friends’ 4s’s from 8.1.2 to 8.3 due to a bug in the iTunes Backup/Restore. The bug is beyond moronic, and it is one of those things that makes you shake your fist in the air and curse Apple. (You can probably figure out why I stayed on 8.1.2, and then went to 8.3 after 8.4 dropped but before the SHSH signing window closed! Well, Apple got their revenge on us folks.) Basically, the Restore process encounters a file that was in an allowed location in 8.1.2, but needs to go to a DISALLOWED location in 8.3 (security/permission changes between the versions). In my case, I believe the file was the Emoji keyboard Recent list. Seriously. An Apple System file. But this condition is a FATAL condition! iTunes will NOT complete the Restore, refusing, and will effectively render your ENTIRE BACKUP (9GB in my case) completely ruined! [@horowitz I hope you’re reading these comments!] It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve done the backup, once, twice, in my case FIVE TIMES…they’re all toast. I was able to replicate the bug, and I was able to Restore one of the 4s Backups that failed to another 4s I had that was still running 8.1.2 successfully. It is DEFINITELY a bug, and it is a doozy. Subsequently, I was able to, by hand, modify the backup manifest file and remove the offending file (which I was able to find in the log output), and eventually was able to restore half a dozen friends’ phones. I lost about a week of text messages because I got lucky and ended up doing an iCloud restore that was about a week old and was able to, by hand, reinsert my newer Messages.DB into the newer backup. (about 10 hours of web scouring, hex editors, and learning WAAAAAY more about iTunes iPhones backups than I ever cared to know, including that it is a completely broken process unworthy of the term “Backup”).
I called AppleCare and reported the bug. They could not have cared less. I am assuming that if I had upgraded to 8.2 first, then 8.3, it would not have happened. Unfortunately that wasn’t an option as Apple closes the IPSW signing windows and locks that avenue out. I spent about 4 hours on the telephone with an escalation team. Their position was that my backup was “corrupt”, even tho I was later able to prove that it was not. The Backup was fine, it was iTunes and the Restore process that was at fault.
It might be useful for @horowitz to suggest that users do both an unencrypted and an encrypted backup. Because if the process goes south, you have NO way to do anything with an encrypted backup; a user could lose EVERYTHING. Additionally, it should be noted that iTunes on the Mac treats iPhone backups very differently than it does on Windows! Windows doesn’t support multiple backups, nor the concept of Archiving backups. So doing multiple backups on Windows really should involve making sure Windows Backup or some other backup tool gets run between the two Backups in iTunes. Even on the Mac, my mistake was that I didn’t Archive my backup…I just did several of them. And I wasn’t running Time Machine at the time. That was a HUGE mistake! Multiple backups, multiple occasions for iTunes to warn me of corruption (but of course the backups weren’t actually corrupted), but without Time Machine I had no way of going back through to test. It was only later when I discovered the bug with OTHER users that I was able to spend another 5 or 6 hours to diagnose it. Again, Apple didn’t care.
Oh, and it should also go without saying that Step 3 should occur BEFORE Step 2, @horwitz. (Sorry for having mucked your last name in my last post!) Never do an Erase BEFORE you’ve validated the Restore on your new device!
That is Backup/Restore 101.
If you erase your old iPhone before you complete an iTunes Restore, you could lose everything. Whereas if you wait and verify, you can always fall back to an iCloud Restore (or use 3rd party tools) if the iTunes Restore fails. The very last thing you should do is the Erase All Content and Settings. THE VERY LAST. I mean, like right before you put that phone into a carrier rep’s or buyer’s hand. (And this requires some pre-planning because you’ll need internet access for it to work; can’t rely on cell service being active!)
This would work great if… I actually had a computer that could hold a complete backup! I don’t nearly have room enough on my MacBook Pro for a complete backup, let alone my wife’s as well. I am curious, when it does the iCloud backup, does it do a second copy of all the music and pictures that are already on the computer (iTunes/Photos)?
Someone else must know more than me. Here’s a start: (1) You can set up iTunes to use an external device to store your media, music, movies, and so on. This saves about half of your space requirement; (2) the local disk is used (Windows, not 100% sure for MacBook) for backup files. For my kids with laptops with 128 GB drives, we redirect the primary storage to an external drive and there’s enough space left for the backup. Provided it’s not a loaded high-storage iPhone. As a last resort if I’m wrong a MscBook, the prices of larger SSDs are so much cheaper, you might get one and use a tool like Super Duper to clone your current drive to the new device, then switch the drives and you now have ample space.
For the first time since 2009 I won’t be doing this. My phone is so glitchy and laggy. Apple told me it’s the backup and I shouldn’t restore a backup. My text messages app is so stuffed with old messages if I try to delete some convos the phone heats up and reboots and when it turns back on those convos I deleted are back haha. I really like keeping everything phone to phone but looks like I’ll have to just use whatever iCloud syncs with a simple login and start over.
Hello
How about my current iPhone 6 which runs iOS 9.1 Public Beta. Would this backup work with my new iPhone 6s running iOs 9.0?
Will iOS 9.1 backup work on iOS 9.0?!
This simple backup and restore procedure is something too useful and handy to understand for users of other platforms
After transferring purchases on the second backup, should I see all the apps from my phone in the “Applications” section on iTunes? I expected to, but I don’t.
Hi, I have a problem. When I received my iPhone 6s yesterday I attempted to back up my iPhone 5 to the iCloud. It would not complete. I called Apple support and they advised that my phone did back up despite the message. I looked at my iCloud account and all appeared ok, so I went ahead with the activation of my iPhone 6s. Mistake! When I got to the step to restore my phone from iCloud backup, No backups were there! I then paused to attempt to back up my iPhone 5 to iTunes. Again received another failed message. Since my new iPhone was stuck in the activation process, I felt I had no choice but to go ahead with the activation as a New phone. I once again called Apple and we went round and round with many attempts to backup, all unsuccessful. Finally, we were able to transfer my pics and contacts, but messages, apps, files, etc are still missing. My husband was able to finally figure out that a particular app was causing the backup to fail, so now I have a backup on the iCloud and iTunes. A little too late.
Bottom line, is there any way now to transfer all the missing pieces to my new iPhone or do I just have to spend my weekend downloading the apps all over again and be resolved with the fact my messages and files are unattainable?
Sorry for the long message. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!
Hope I’m not to late… If you now have a back up of your old iPhone 5 to iTunes all you have to do delete everything from your iPhone 6s and then start over (Settings, General, Reset, Erase all content and settings). I backed up my iPhone 6s from my 4s back up without the encryption and it didn’t transfer everything. I deleted everything from the 6s and then went back and did a encrypted back up with the 4s. Then I tried the back up again on the 6s and it worked perfectly! I mean everything. From the wall paper down to the last calculation I did on the calculator matched what was on the 4s. Hope this helps.
So I just updated iOS systems for my iphone and lost my “nike+ running” app along with all my run history from the last year. Is it possible to restore the last operating system? and if I do will that restore the old info/history of runs from the nike+ app?
Thanks for the great “how-to.” Was helpful! Made upgrading to my Space Gray iPhone6s Plus a Snap!
Hi! So I was transferring from a 5s to a 6s. It said that my backup had old software and it couldn’t do it, but then it used a backup that was still on my hard drive from 7/2014. I have a back up of my 5s that is only a few hours old, and it won’t show that backup. When I erased the old back up, even though the last backup from my 5s was showing in iTunes preferences, itunes won’t acknowledge it for my 6s. Is there anyway around this so I don’t have to go through and find which apps I no longer have on the phone and, more importantly, can get my correct photos on this phone? Thanks!
Maybe it meant the iOS software on your new *iPhone* was too old?
If your current iPhone has iOS 9.2 but the brand-new iPhone still has iOS 9.1 (once it’s in a box, Apple doesn’t update the operating system on a new device), it won’t be able to restore from your most recent backup, only older ones. That ties in with your symptoms..
If you think that might be the case, set up your new iPhone as a *new* phone, update to the latest iOS release, and then go into Settings and erase the *new* phone that now has the latest iOS software on it, and THEN try to restore the backup from your current phone.
Hi, please help!
I own an iPhone 5 that I purchased from my employer after the company was acquired by a larger competitor and shut down.
Soon after, I realised there were abnormal settings i.e. restriction to a longer passcode, iTunes app was nowhere to be found etc.
After digging deeper and doing some research, I found that there was a Configuration Profile set up on the phone & there seems to be no means of removing it (to my knowledge) without completely starting from scratch. Like most people, I have contacts, apps, ebooks, photos (the list goes on) that I want to hold on to…
I read somewhere that if you restore from a backup, the Configuration Profile will also be included, & that this is permanent. Might not be true but makes me super nervous…
I’d like to:
1. Get rid of this from the iPhone 5 and clear everything so I can resell.
2. Restore my data on a new iPhone 6 without having the same problems.
Would really love some clear advice on this!
I wonder if you can help. I just bought a new iphone 6s plus and trying to transfer the data. I have backed my old iphone 4S on itunes. Last back up on icloud was 2015 because my old phone (4s) stopped backing up to icloud ages ago (hence the new phone). Setting up my new iphone, I think that I started to transfer the data from the icloud (from 2015 backup) and then changed my mind (not ideal, as have done alot between 2015 & todate) & thought it best to do via itunes. But when I go to transfer the data from itunes it says “your iphone is currently being restored from an icloud backup’ and I can’t do anything. It’s like it’s stuck..My old iphone won’t work now, & my new iphone is blank, no apps, no contacts nothing. How do I stop the icloud backup and just use itunes.. ? Help!
it all sounds good and i did just as you said (at least I thought so), but when i backed up, there was none of my old data. i think it autmaitcally backed up the new phone when i plugged it in so the latest backup was the new phone. Not sure what i’ll do now except start over or maybe i can get it from the cloud?
Nice idea, but when the iPhone 6 comes with ios8 and you have to set it up as a new phone and upgrade to iOS 9.3, you lose the option to restore the backups you made from yr old phone!!
I only want to transfer 1 album of photo’s not all of them onto my new I Phone 6. How can I do this?????