How to restore your iPhone from a backup

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With your iPhone being such an integral part of your daily life, it’s no surprise that it stores a large part of your digital life – from your favorite photos and videos to important PDFs and documents. As with any other digital data, your files are at risk of being hacked and accidentally deleted.

That’s why it’s always a good practice to back up your iPhone to save your media, apps, and even your preferences. These backups can come in handy in the event that you lose or damage your device, your phone experiences a random issue, or you just want to upgrade to a new version.

Apple offers two ways to back up your iPhone: via iCloud, and on a computer. We’ll walk you through a step-by-step process on how to restore this backup to a newly purchased iPhone, or one that’s been factory reset, so you can bring your new device back to its original state. in the past.

From iCloud

Apple allows you to back up your iPhone to iCloud. If this is how you created your backup, follow these steps to restore it to your new iPhone:

1. Turn on your iPhone.
2. Select your preferred language and country/region.
3. Click on “Manual Installation.”
4. Connect to a Wi-Fi network.
5. On the Data & Privacy page, click “Continue.”
6. On the Face ID page, select “Setup Later.”
7. Enter your preferred passcode.
8. In the Apps & Data page, click “Restore from iCloud backup.”
9. Sign in to your iCloud account.
10. Select a backup from the list. You can see the most recent backup at the very top.
11. In the Create Your New iPhone page, hit “Continue.”
12. (Optional) Go through the steps to set up Apple Pay and iCloud Keychain.
13. On the Analytics page, choose whether or not to share analytics with Apple.
14. Enter your Apple ID password.

The restore from iCloud message should appear on your screen. Keep your device connected to the Internet. Once the process is complete, your device should reboot and be ready for use.

From a computer backup

If you created a backup of your iPhone using your Mac or Windows computer, you can use the same backup to restore your new or deleted device. Here’s how:

1. Start the computer where you saved the iPhone backup.
2. Connect your new iPhone to the computer using a charging cable.
3. When prompted, click “Trust” on the Trust This Computer alert on your phone to allow the computer access to your mobile device, and enter your passcode to continue.
4. If you’re using macOS 10.15 or newer:
   1. Launch the Finder program on your computer.
   2. Under Location on the sidebar, type your iPhone.
   3. Click the “Trust” button.
   4. Click on “Restore from this backup.”
5. If you are using Windows OS or macOS 10.14 or earlier:
   1. Launch the latest version of iTunes software.
   2. In the upper left corner, write on the iPhone button.
   3. Select “Summary.”
   4. Click “Restore backup.”
6. Select the iPhone backup you previously created.
7. Click “Continue.”
8. For saved backups, enter the password to restore the backup.

Your iPhone should show a “Restore in Progress” warning on the screen. Depending on the size of your backup, the restore may take several minutes to several hours. When finished, a “Restore Completed” message will appear on your iPhone. Click “Continue” to continue the initial setup of your device (for example, connect to Wi-Fi, create a passcode, set up Siri).