How to calculate iPhone back-up storage for the very first back-up

Question

Level 1

4 points

How to calculate iPhone back-up storage for the very first back-up

I have an iPhone 12 IOS17.3.1. I want to back it up to iCloud. My iCloud storage available is 4.9GB. I have reduced everything that could be backed-up to the minimum. However, iCloud 'tells' me I do not have enough storage.

How do I find out how much storage is required?

How do I find out what elements are causing the back-up to exceed 4.0GB

If I need iCloud+ I'd like to know beforehand how big my backups will be.

Hours spent on the web did not offer any answers about gauging the size of an initial back-up.

thanks in advance, Stephen

iPhone 12, iOS 17

Posted on Mar 25, 2024 2:23 PM

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Answer 1

muguy

Level 10

92,854 points

Mar 25, 2024 2:27 PM in response to DrPuck

Settings > Apple ID > icloud > icloud backup > {device name}

It will take a while to load, but you'll see the size of the next backup after it is calculated.

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Answer 2

LD150

Level 10

103,976 points

Mar 26, 2024 6:31 AM in response to DrPuck

DrPuck wrote:

My question was: how to determine how large an initial iPhone12 backup will be?

Contacts and calendar takes up <1mb space.

What are the standard components and what are their sizes in an initial iPhone 12 back-up?

To do that theoretical calculation provide a screenshot of the first two or three pages of Settings , General, iphone Storage.

Tell us which of those are definitely sync'd to iCloud.

Provide a screen shot of iPhone, Settings, [tap your name], iCloud,

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Answer 3

lkrupp

Level 7

24,199 points

Mar 26, 2024 5:13 AM in response to DrPuck

iOS is now at 17.4.1. There have been several important security patches and bug fixes since 17.3.1. It would be prudent to update regardless of your question.

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Answer 4

DrPuck Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 26, 2024 5:12 AM in response to LD150

My question was: how to determine how large an initial iPhone12 backup will be?

Contacts and calendar takes up <1mb space.

What are the standard components and what are their sizes in an initial iPhone 12 back-up?

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Answer 5

lkrupp

Level 7

24,199 points

Mar 26, 2024 5:19 AM in response to DrPuck

DrPuck wrote:

Nope. This does not occur on my iPhone 12 IOS 17.3.1

If you are running iOS 17 then yes, that’s where you would find the calculation. If it’s truly not there then you have no way to calculate the initial backup and you may have an issue on with your installation.

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