It’s wise to keep an archived backup of your iOS or iPadOS devices if you plan to test beta software. That way, if something goes wrong on your iPhone, you can restore the older, archived backup to fix it. Without archives, your new backups would automatically overwrite the older ones.
This post explains how you restore archived backups of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. We’ve included instructions for Windows and Mac computers, whether you back up using iTunes or Finder.
Contents
Related:
- Archive iOS & iPadOS backups using iTunes or Finder
- iTunes backup not working after macOS upgrade? Tips to consider
- How to back up iPhone to an external drive using iTunes and Terminal
- iTunes could not back up or restore because ‘the backup was corrupt or not compatible’
Why are archived backups so important?
Normally, when you make a new backup of your iOS or iPadOS device, it overwrites the previous backup, updating it with all the new data. That makes it impossible to restore older backups of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
This is disastrous if you’re part of the Apple Beta Software Program because if you revert to the normal software, you can’t restore backups you made in the beta program.
Fortunately, it’s possible to archive your iOS or iPadOS backups using a Mac or Windows PC. When you do this, it locks the backup so it isn’t updated anymore. The next time you back up your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, iTunes or Finder creates an entirely new and separate backup.
We’ve already written about how to create archived backups of your devices for Mac users. So now, let’s explain how you restore an archived backup to get all the data back on your device.
How to archive iPhone backups on a Windows PC
Archiving an iPhone backup with Windows involves a different process to using a Mac. You need to locate the backup folder in your system files and rename it. That way, iTunes doesn’t recognize the folder and stops updating it as you make new backups.
Find your iTunes backups by going to:
- C: Drive > Users > [Username].
- App Data > Roaming > Apple > MobileSync > Backup.
- Be sure to keep your renamed backup in the same location.
How do I restore an older backup of my iPhone?
It’s easy to restore archived iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch backups you already saved to your computer. Since Apple discontinued iTunes for macOS Catalina, we’ve written separate instructions for using iTunes and Finder.
Click the relevant link below to jump straight to the right section:
- Restore archived backups using Finder in macOS Catalina or later.
- Restore archived backups using iTunes on a Mac or Windows PC.
If you didn’t make an archived backup to a computer, you might be able to restore older iCloud backups instead.
Restore archived backups using Finder in macOS Catalina or later:
- Unlock your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and connect it to your Mac using the Lightning-to-USB cable it came with.
- Open Finder and select your device from the sidebar, under Locations.
- If prompted, enter your passcode and agree to Trust This Computer.
- Select the General tab in Finder, then scroll down to the Backups section.
- Click Restore Backup… and select your archived backup from the drop-down menu. Use the date and time to see when you made the backup.
- Click Restore.
- Wait until your device restarts before you disconnect it.
Restore archived backups using iTunes on a Mac or Windows PC:
- Unlock your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and connect it to your Mac using the Lightning-to-USB cable it came with.
- Open iTunes and select your device from the top-left of the window.
- If prompted, enter your passcode and agree to Trust This Computer.
- Select the Summary page from the sidebar.
- Click Restore Backup and select your archived backup from the drop-down menu. Use the date and time to see when you made the backup.
- Click Restore.
- Wait until your device restarts before you disconnect it.
Archive your backups to avoid corrupted files
Without an archive, later iPhone backups only save the data that has changed. This means if a file gets corrupted in one backup, that corruption is present in all the following backups too.
You should occasionally archive an older iPhone backup on your computer to protect against this possibility. Alternatively, find out what to do if you do have a corrupted backup in iTunes or Finder.
Dan is a freelance writer based in South West England.
He spent two years supervising repairs as a Genius Admin for Apple Retail and uses that knowledge to keep our troubleshooting guides up to date.
Long before that, Dan turned to Apple products from a musical background. Having owned iPods for years, he bought a MacBook to learn sound recording and production. It was using those skills that he gained a first-class Bachelor of Science in Sound Technology.
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Seeking help. Let me know your fee, please. I back up my iPhone 5SE on iTunes on 6 Feb 2020 as I received a new iPhone from BT.
I wanted to download everything on the 5Se to the new phone.
Very long story short, Apple Support instructed me to purchase additional icloud space and download the 5SE to the cloud. This took several hours.
Setting up my new iPhone 6s from the cloud, all of my apps, Messages, Whatsapp conversations, etc, downloaded successfully but only 1170 photos out of 5300 downloaded plus a number of my videos.
My icloud account shows that only 1170 photos were uploaded to the cloud.
Accessing iTunes, my 6 Feb 2020 back up isn’t there. Several of the later backups are there that Apple Support carried out. It appears that the later ones have overwritten the 6 Feb’s.
Backup shows previous backups but none dated 6 Feb.
Loads are dated 10 Feb (today) – I’ve not carried out any backup on iTunes today!
However, when I double click on one dated 10 Feb, I get a list of files, some dated 6 Feb. Are any of these likely to hold the 4000 lost photos and videos?
I’d really welcome your help.
John Jenkins
Hi John,
We never charge a fee!
Do you still have that older iPhone 5S? I ask to determine if you have access to the photos that aren’t currently showing up on your new iPhone.
There’s a number of things that could be going on:
1) Did you purchase a large enough iCloud plan to cover the storage for all your photos? If you hit the top limit of your plan, iCloud stops uploading
2) If you have plenty of iCloud storage available, it’s quite possible that your photos are either still uploading to iCloud from your original iPhone or are in the process of downloading to your new iPhone
To determine what’s going on, log into iCloud’s website on a computer and check how many photos are available in the cloud through the web portal–if all your previous iPhone photos are there (from the iPhone 5S) then it’s very likely that they have not all downloaded to your new iPhone. To help that, plug your new iPhone into a power source (wall outlet preferred) and connect to your fastest WiFi network, then open the Photos app. You should see a message about downloading photos.
If all the photos have not yet uploaded to iCloud, do the same process with your older iPhone 5S–connect to power and a fast WiFi and then open the photos app
3) Make sure your new iPhone 6S has sufficient space to store all those iCloud Photos. With iOS 13, you need to have at least 1GB free and available for the software and apps to run without problems–so make sure you don’t overcrowd the internal storage on your iPhone
Regarding those backups, not sure what’s going on with the dates. In the future, before you migrate to a new device (or even update to a new major iOS version) it’s a good idea to archive a backup. An Archived backup cannot be overwritten. It acts as a safety net just in case something goes wrong with an update or transfer.
iTunes backups include photos that were taken with the device but might not include photos that were synced with iTunes or the Photos app on a Mac.
We suggest you investigate first if iCloud just hasn’t completed the upload/download process before doing anything else.
If that doesn’t yield results, then open iTunes and archive your backups. After archiving, make a new backup. And then restore from one of those archived backups to see if your photos are there.