Accidentally deleted old device off of my Apple ID/iCloud account. Don't have old device anymore.

Question

Accidentally deleted old device off of my Apple ID/iCloud account. Don't have old device anymore.

Over the weekend I dropped my phone (an SE) in a lake & I couldn't recover it.

I had gotten an old device (5S) from my dad temporarily, reset the phone and tried to sign in to the phone with my Apple ID. The issue was that the phone was sending a verification "to my other devices." I assumed it was trying to send the code to my lake phone. In order to get around this, I removed the lake phone from my list of devices in Apple ID/iCloud. The verification problem was still occurring though so I updated the phone first and with the update was able to select a "Didn't get a code?" option so that the code could be texted to my phone.

So long story short, I have connected my Apple ID to the phone but when I went to restore using a backup (like a backup of my lake phone) it says I have no backups available. So I don't currently have any contacts, photos, apps, etc that were on my old phone. I've lost the last 4 years of stuff.

Is it possible that the backup was connected to the lake phone device that I removed from my device list? If so, is it possible to reinstate that device (without the physical device) to my list of devices?

iPhone 5s

Posted on Sep 10, 2019 11:13 AM

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Answer 1

Eric Root

Level 10

685,985 points

Sep 10, 2019 11:51 AM in response to polkaspotgirl

You can't add back a device you don't have access to.

What IOS version was the SE using and what version is the 5S using? You can't restore a backup made with a newer IOS to a device running an earlier IOS version.

Backups - Locate backups of your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

Were you syncing that data to iCloud? On the 5S, have you signed into iCloud using the same Apple ID in Settings and turned syncing on? Allow time for the sync to complete. Photos syncing is very, very slow.

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Answer 2

Sep 10, 2019 12:17 PM in response to Eric Root

The 5S has now been updated to run on 12.4.1 and the SE was only one update behind when I lost it. So from what you said in your reply, I don't think that should be an issue.

I have been signing in to the same Apple ID account each time, since I've only ever had one account. I have taken the steps in your link to locate a back up on my iPhone but it says there is only 1 backup with zeroKB of data (nothing on it). I think that is a backup from the phone from after I reset it last night. There don't seem to be any back ups from beforehand.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean when you ask if I have "turned syncing on" for the 5S. I can see on iCloud.com that all of my old photos from the SE are there (even one taken the day before loosing the phone) but there isn't any other data, such as contacts and apps on iCloud.com. On the 5S device itself there is nothing, including photos.

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

685,985 points

Sep 10, 2019 12:52 PM in response to polkaspotgirl

Have you signed into Settings/Your Name/iCloud using the same Apple ID and switched on syncing for the various things.

Apps aren't stored in iCloud. I don't know how you can restore the Contacts if they aren't shown in iCloud.com/Contacts and you don't have a backup you can restore.

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Answer 4

Sep 10, 2019 1:05 PM in response to Eric Root

Oh I understand now. Yes, I have turned on syncing for almost everything, but still no data from the old phone is restored. Bummer.

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Accidentally deleted old device off of my Apple ID/iCloud account. Don't have old device anymore.

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