After something went wrong with the back up I'd made I rerun iTunes and then install an earlier backup. The backup used was from 2015 or 2016, and now nothing on the phone is current

Question

After something went wrong with the back up I'd made I rerun iTunes and then install an earlier backup. The backup used was from 2015 or 2016, and now nothing on the phone is current

I have an iPhone 6S. I first backed it up using iTunes. Then I tried to do the update to iOS 13.3. The first time i tried this it stopped mid way and a notice said there was a problem and to retry. So I did. It indicated that 13.3 was successfully loaded. But it wasn't. I discovered that the 10GB of storage room I previously has was now gone even though iPhone Storage showed there was still storage space. Apple Support determined there was something wrong with the back up I'd made and had me rerun iTunes to take the phone back to the factory settings and then install an earlier backup. So now I have plenty of storage space but the backup used was from 2015 or 2016. Nothing on the phone is current. But....I also use Time Machine to backup my entire iMac daily to an external drive. Is there a way to import just an iTunes backup from that drive that was made prior to me backing up my iPhone and will this then let me update my phone and recover everything that was lost? Or...can I do this directly to the phone?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iMac 21.5", macOS 10.13

Posted on Dec 19, 2019 12:53 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 19, 2019 4:44 PM in response to Just_Crazy_because_of_this

I’m afraid that you’ve learned that frequent backups are a good idea. You can enable automatic backups to iCloud that will create a backup every night if you leave the phone plugged in, connected to Wi-Fi, and locked.

But yes, you can try restoring a Time Machine backup to your computer. On your Mac open iTunes, go to Preferences, Devices, click on any backup and choose Show in Finder. With that Finder window active click on Time Machine and it should list your available backups.

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Answer 2

Dec 19, 2019 7:09 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

Thanks for your info.

After I found a backup I wanted I clicked on it to restore. That took me to a screen asking where I wanted it to go. I got to Applications on my iMac but couldn't highlight iTunes. Is there something else I need to do or will the back up automatically go to iTunes in the Applications folder?

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