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Why won't my iPhone 4 work.

So my iPhone 4 worked a year ago and I made the mistake of not backing it up. I don't use the iPhone 4 but it has lots of photos I want to transfer to my m1 MacBook Pro. When I plug it into my Mac, it turns on and shows me a picture of a cord plugging into iTunes. However, once I select "update" it says it's unable to update and tells me to "restore." Should I click restore? I don't want to wipe my phone and I'm pretty sure restoring will do so. Is there another way to get my old photos from that phone? Thanks!

iPhone 4

Posted on Jan 20, 2022 5:49 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 20, 2022 6:14 PM

At this point its too late to transfer content from that phone. Backups are for before disaster strikes, after is too late.


Are you sure you didn’t do ANY of these ways of preserving photos and videos?


  • Archive or make copies of the information you store in iCloud
  • emailed, texted or messaged the photos to friends or family
  • iCloud photo sync
  • iCloud backup
  • iTunes backup
  • Transfer your photos to your computer via USB cable
  • Apple Photo Stream
  • Sync to Google Photos
  • Sync to some other photo archiving service such as Shutterfly
  • Sync to Dropbox
  • Sync to box.com
  • Sync to Microsoft OneDrive
  • Sync to Amazon Photos
  • back up to Livedrive
  • Backup to any other backup or archiving service


A final option is if you synced your photos to iCloud, you have a Mac, and you use Time Machine to back up your Mac automatically, you can open Time Machine and restore the photo library to an earlier date. To do this on your Mac open Finder, then click on Pictures in the sidebar and launch Time Machine. Go to a time before the photos were deleted and restore

Photos Library.photoslibrary. (If you had ever changed the name of the photo library restore that file instead).


If the answer is no to all of the above your photos are gone forever.

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 20, 2022 6:14 PM in response to the_real_sam_the_man

At this point its too late to transfer content from that phone. Backups are for before disaster strikes, after is too late.


Are you sure you didn’t do ANY of these ways of preserving photos and videos?


  • Archive or make copies of the information you store in iCloud
  • emailed, texted or messaged the photos to friends or family
  • iCloud photo sync
  • iCloud backup
  • iTunes backup
  • Transfer your photos to your computer via USB cable
  • Apple Photo Stream
  • Sync to Google Photos
  • Sync to some other photo archiving service such as Shutterfly
  • Sync to Dropbox
  • Sync to box.com
  • Sync to Microsoft OneDrive
  • Sync to Amazon Photos
  • back up to Livedrive
  • Backup to any other backup or archiving service


A final option is if you synced your photos to iCloud, you have a Mac, and you use Time Machine to back up your Mac automatically, you can open Time Machine and restore the photo library to an earlier date. To do this on your Mac open Finder, then click on Pictures in the sidebar and launch Time Machine. Go to a time before the photos were deleted and restore

Photos Library.photoslibrary. (If you had ever changed the name of the photo library restore that file instead).


If the answer is no to all of the above your photos are gone forever.

Why won't my iPhone 4 work.

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