What I Wish I Knew About iOS Back-ups and What I Have Since Learned

Backing up data from an iOS device to your computer has a serious flaw, in my opinion, and more than likely, I believe Apple will never address it. What is this flaw, you ask?

Four words: Lack of automated backups.

Sure, iPhone and iPad users can use iCloud for backups to Apple’s servers – but it’s a paid, monthly service. For some, it’s worth the convenience. And it’s not a bad deal if you’re not taking a ton of photos or generating a lot of user data.

But if you do, you’ll reach your data back-up threshold sooner than later and Apple will nudge strong-arm you to pay for a larger storage plan tier. Recently, our family hit that threshold and I wasn’t about to go from $0.99/month to $2.99/month. It was time to look for options…

Yes, I know that Apple will let you back your iOS device to your computer, but it requires discipline on the part of the user to remember to do it. Effectively, iTunes can perform a manual back-up to your Mac, but it must be initiated by the user. This, in my view, is the fatal flaw. How many people remember to do this on a regular basis?

Which brings me to the reason why I’m writing about iOS back-ups in the first place…

I brought my iPhone 7 to the Apple Store yesterday to replace its aging battery with a new one. (Side note: replacing a battery will cost $49 and is totally worth it if you want to keep your phone for a longer period of time.) Before handing over my phone, the Apple tech warned me of the fact that since I was running the iOS 13 beta, putting a new battery in would mean reverting the iPhone back to its factory iOS 12 settings. I was okay with this because:

1. I had assumed my data was fully backed-up using iCloud. After all, a quick login to my iCloud settings (while at the Apple store) confirmed that all my photos were backed-up.
2. I had also assumed that I had an iOS back-up stored locally on my Mac.

As it turns out, these were bad assumptions on my part.

When I received my iPhone7, it was still the same hardware – but the device had been reverted to a virgin iOS 12 state. No big deal, I thought. I’ve got iCloud back-ups and a data back-up on my Mac mini.

Imagine my disbelief when I came home to discover that the only back-ups iCloud had were that of my iPad Pro. There were no iPhone7 back-ups to be found. Again, I wasn’t panicking. After all, I had a local iOS data back-up on my Mac, right?

Nope.

After muttering yelling a few choice words and shaking my fist in rage at my own blunder, I had to come to terms with the fact that I had to set my phone up from scratch.

Thankfully, all my photos, contacts and music were intact. (I did lose all my Apple Music subscription downloads, but that’s no biggie.) Several of the apps I use (Kayak, Fantastical, 1Password) all have easy access to synched data from iCloud, Dropbox, or Google – so getting the data back for those apps wasn’t a problem, either.

Reinstalling my apps from scratch turned out to be an unforeseen boon; it gave me pause to make deliberate choices on what apps would or would not be allowed on my iPhone. Wasteful time bleeds like Facebook, Messenger, Tweetbot, and Flipboard were left off.

Getting my iPhone7 back to a useable state took me the better part of 3 hours. After the dust settled, my first goal was to find a means of automating back-ups on my iPhone.

A few quick Google searches resulted in an app called iMazing. Until yesterday, I had never even heard of this app before.

iMazing runs on both Mac and Windows and lets users create automated iOS back-ups, without the need of being beholden to iCloud or iTunes. Users can keep encrypted iOS back-ups on any local storage attached to their desktop machine. iMazing can take those back-ups and restore them back onto your iOS device, should you need to. Best of all, you can make automated back-ups via WiFi.

iMazing is a paid program (retail price: $44), but you can try it out before you buy. (I scored a copy for about $20 through a recent 4th of July sale.) Users can back up multiple iOS devices onto one Mac with a single machine license. Moving to a new iPhone? Transferring data from your back-up to the new device is just a click away.

As of this post, I have not fully tested this program, but my initial impressions in using it thus far have been favorable. I plan to write more about iMazing and my full experience of what this program can and can’t do in an upcoming post.

-Krishna