How do I only backup or sync photos, contact, and documents for an iPhone?
How do I only backup or sync photos, contacts, and documents for an iPhone? Can I then turn off iCloud Backup and it will still sync? It's a bit confusing.
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Sync and backup are 2 different things.
You can sync Photos by turning on the iCloud Photos option in Settings ➜ Photos
You sync contacts automatically when they are stored or created under the iCloud group / Folder in the Contacts App.
Documents can be synced if saved to an iCloud location in the Files App.
You can control what gets backed up separate from what is synced by going to Settings ➜ Account (top of Settings) ➜ iCloud ➜ iCloud Backup ➜ Your iPhone's name.
And turn on or off things you don't want to be backing up.
Things that are already synced will not be backed up. For instance, contacts synced to iCloud are not also backed up. Photos set to sync to iCloud Photos as above are not also backed up. If you choose to not sync photos to iCloud, then you can turn on the switch in the Backup options for Photo Library to have it backed up.
Backups are closed packages that cannot be accessed directly other that to restore them onto a new or erase iPhone to get the data back.
Synced content can be accessed at any time through any app that syncs.