About the Eco-System and How it Handles storing and keeping information

Question

About the Eco-System and How it Handles storing and keeping information

Hello, Im afraid that I will have a hard time quickly painting the picture of what is going on.

I moved to Mac from PC after getting an iPhone, loving it and accumulating data on here that I needed to keep safe. I volunteer for a organization that helps a government organization keep children safe. This data can go to trial in court.

I lost some data. This data is still on my(disabled) iPhone 6 that I kept in case something goes awry. Since I had just bought my first Mac and didn't(still don't) fully understand how iCloud and backups work. To this day I feel like if I'm not very careful, I will lose something. I learned the hard way syncing my phone can have some serious consequences but I can't tell what I did wrong. It just feels like since that same data was or wasn't on one device, the whole of iCloud decided to get rid of it for me?

I know, for a fact, that I backed up the iPhone 6. I did on my PC with iTunes, and also on my brand new M1 running BigSur, even with iCloud over wifi.

Fast forward to today. I need that old data for a new court case August 8th. And it is PARAMOUNT that I find it. I cannot find it ANYWHERE. The data I need specifically is a couple Voice Memos recordings from February 2020 and text messages from June 2019 forward. The earliest data I can find is from April 2020.

I have no idea what I did wrong. I thought I was doing right by backing it up and leaving it alone. Its not for me its for a couple people that have no choice in any of this and don't yet have the power to have a say in anything that happens around them. I have messed up so bad and I don't even know how to rectify what I've done.

Thank you

Mac mini, macOS 12.4

Posted on Jul 2, 2022 4:14 PM

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Answer 1

muguy

Level 10

91,424 points

Jul 2, 2022 5:12 PM in response to Hudson-Dad-56

To learn how to backup, and what data each backs up, review: How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support

If you have important data, it's a good idea to export it an retain multiple copies (3 copies, made 2 ways, with 1 offsite).

It's probable that the data you are looking to recover has been lost; generally, if it's not on your device it doesn't exist.

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Answer 2

Jul 2, 2022 4:34 PM in response to Hudson-Dad-56

Things I've tried to recover the data:

-Spotlight search for .m4a files. Found all or most memos dating back to mid 2020. Need earlier.

-Making a new APFS volume, installing a fresh copy of Mac and restoring from old backups.

-Restoring my iPhone 7 from previous backups. Found 1memo file I needed. Im looking for 2 others. Not at all sure how that worked out because all 3 were recorded around the same time. Not more than 6 weeks apart.

-Power scrolling through texts letting them reload from iCloud. furthest I can go back is still not far enough to find what I need.

-Copying backup locations in and out from the pc to Mac or the other way around. I can only find 5 actual backups out of several spanning 4 devices. (my iPhone, wife iPhone, our tablet and the Mac)

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