How to prevent old versions of apps from updating while restoring from backup
Is there a way to make sure that old versions of apps won't get automatically updated on their own while setting up new phone and restoring from backup?
Every time I bought a new iPhone I always backed up the old device and used "restore from backup" when I set up the new one. So I was able to drag along with me a few old versions of apps over the years that I decided to stop update all together, primarily: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Recently, I bought a new iPhone and went from iPhone SE (2020) running iOS 14.0.1, to iPhone 13 mini running iOS 16.1.1, so it was quite a jump forward with the operating system.
Before that I had iPhone 7 running iOS 12 and then I upgraded to iPhone SE (2020) running iOS 13 (at the time I bought it).
- When I restored from backup when I upgraded from iPhone 7 with iOS 12 to iPhone SE running iOS 13, I had no problem at all. All the apps kept their old versions without updating. Including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
- However, when I restored from backup going from SE (iOS 14) to 13 mini (iOS 16) the majority of the app kept their old versions expect Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. These apps got updated on their own during the restoration, while automatic updates was turn off in the Apps Store settings. Other apps like Duolingo or Twitch and others, that weren't updated to their latest version, didn't update and kept their version as it was on the old device.
I tried to restore with both iCloud and iTunes. First with iCloud, then erased the phone and restored it again from backup via iTunes. In both cases these three apps got updated to their latest version during the restoration and all other apps didn't.
Versions change:
- Facebook – went from version 139 from September 2017 into version 401 from February 2023.
- Instagram – went from version 7.18.1 from April 2016 into version 269 from February 2023
- Twitter – went from version 6.80 from August 2016 into version 9.43 from February 2023
Other apps like Twitch, Facebook Messenger, Duolingo, Microsoft Word etc didn't update during the restoration.
Here's illustration I made. You can see that the icon changed only after the installation completed.
I don't understand why these three specific apps were affected while other won't. What so special in those apps? Why it happened only with them?
Is there a way to make sure these apps won't get update while I restore from backup? Just like the rest of the apps did? The backup is supposes to save the apps.
iPhone 13 Mini