Selective Restore from a Back Up to new IPad Mini

A backup is all or nothing. You cannot select certain portions.

Apps are downloaded from the App Store either way. When you restore from a backup, the new device just "knows" which apps to download and how you had them organized.

Not sure if there's an option to sync the Books content later. Someone else may know and you could certainly try and see what happens.

~Lyssa

You cannot selectively transfer between devices, or selectively restore data; both processes are “all or nothing”. As such, assuming that you have adequate storage to accommodate the transfer or restored data, you can selectively delete data that you don’t wish to keep after the process completes - remembering that some data deletions may be synchronised between devices via iCloud.

Your alternative, or if your don't have sufficient storage on the target device, is to setup the new iPad without transferring or restoring from backup - and then use AirDrop or an alternative to selectively copy content from your old to new device.

Also note that some Apps can be configured to save their documents in iCloud. As such, if you install the associated App on another device that is signed-in to iCloud with the same AppleID, the associated files will automatically be available.

These support pages should get you started with setup of your new iPad - and the methods of transferring your data from old to new iPad:

Set up your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch – Apple Support

Transfer data from your previous iOS device to your new iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Use Quick Start to transfer data to a new iPhone, iPad or iPod touch – Apple Support

If the donor iPad, from which you are transferring your data precedes iOS12.4, QuickStart will not be available.

“Transfer” is rather a misnomer. In reality, your data and setup is merely cloned to the new device. Nothing is moved or removed from the original device.

The alternative is to restore either an iCloud or iTunes backup to the new device:

How to back up your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch – Apple Support

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup - Apple Support

Note also that Apps are not directly transferred between devices. For Apps, the transfer process creates a record of the Apps that are installed on the donor iPad - and it is this record of installed Apps that is transferred to the target (new) device. For Apps that are still available for download from the App Store, the corresponding Apps are automatically downloaded and installed from the App Store.

Everything I'm reading says the transfer/restore will fail. You'll probably want to set the iPad up as new and go from there.

If you can remove items from your current devices and get the iCloud backup to be small enough for the new one, that could work also.

~Lyssa

You can’t selectively restore from a backup, as stated before it’s all or nothing. However, if you had your old iPad syncing to iCloud, a lot of apps will also backup their data to the iCloud as well. This can come in handy when you have multiple devices as it will allow them to all share the same data so no matter which device you pull it up on they’ll all have the same information. I’m not sure about books, but depending on the app, if you purchased the books on one device you should be able to access them on all devices.

That being said, if you setup your new iPad as a “New” device, then download the apps that you want to have the data on the new iPad, if you’re signed into the same AppleID then the apps should get the information from iCloud and sync you data between that of the old iPad and the new iPad. Not sure if this is the type of thing that you are looking for, but it sounds like this option may work for what you’re wanting.