Backing up your computer and other devices is one of the most important maintenance tasks you can do. If your iPhone ever dies or you accidentally drop and break it, it can save you from certain disaster. If you don’t have any data backed up on it, you risk losing it all if the device crashes or malfunctions; this can be a big issue depending on what you store on your iPhone like photos. or important messages.
And of course, your iPhone is one of the most important things you own, considering you probably take it everywhere and keep all your photos, videos, music, movies, TV shows, and ebooks inside.
You may have already backed up some of them, thanks to syncing through various services, but if not, you’re putting yourself at risk if you haven’t. You can back up your iPhone using iTunes or via iCloud with little effort. Here’s how to back up your iPhone using iCloud to avoid losing your important media if the device fails at any point.
What Does iCloud Back Up?
While backing up your iPhone using iCloud is more convenient than backing up via iTunes, iCloud doesn’t back up everything.
Backing up your iPhone with iTunes backs up your entire device, including apps. However, iCloud only backs up photos, videos, documents, iMessages and SMS text messages and settings; therefore, although it backs up the app data, it does not back up the apps you have installed. This makes sense because many apps take up a lot of space, and with only 5GB of free iCloud storage, this may not be enough to store all your apps. Therefore, you can back up using iCloud, but we still recommend backing up via iTunes.
Instructions
To start backing up your iPhone using iCloud, open the app and go to .
Then open it if it isn’t already.
Once iCloud Backup opens, go ahead and tap on it to start the backup process. Depending on how many photos and other files you store on your iPhone (and how fast your WiFi connection is), this may take some time, so sit back and relax. Note that when your iPhone is plugged in, locked, and connected to WiFi, your iPhone will be automatically backed up via iCloud.
Once done, congratulations! Now that you have backed up your data to iCloud, what if you need to restore an iCloud backup? It’s that easy.
How to Restore from an iCloud Backup
If you need to restore your iPhone, you can do so easily using the iOS Setup Assistant, the fancy name for all the menus you go through when you first set up your iPhone.
Meanwhile, you will eventually arrive at a screen that will ask you how you want to set up your new iPhone. You can set it up as a brand new iPhone or restore from a backup. You will want to choose.
If you have multiple iCloud backups, it will give you a list to choose from to restore. Usually, the most recent backup is the one you’ll want to choose.
And that’s it! Backing up and restoring a backup with iCloud is really easy and more convenient than having to plug your iPhone into your computer and open iTunes, but keep in mind that iCloud won’t back up everything, so if you want an exact copy of your iPhone backed up, you’ll want to do it through iTunes.
Why Should You Back Up Your iPhone?
Your iPhone shouldn’t break or fail you, but it certainly can. It’s not a perfect world, so you always run the risk of something breaking you when you least expect it. That’s why it’s important to back up your iPhone regularly so that if it breaks at any point, you can keep your photos, messages, app data, etc. you will not lose.
Backing up your various devices is so important that there is an entire day devoted to awareness raising. There are several ways to back up your iPhone as well, such as automatically backing up the photos and videos you take to a cloud storage service like Dropbox or Google Drive.
Whichever method you choose, be sure to back up your most important files, as they can be lost at any time with the snap of a finger without warning.
