Restore - does it preserve app folders?

I am posting this quite a bit after the last post so I assume everyone has found a work around solution. If not, go to this other discussion thread. A solution to the problem is spelled out here.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2504182?start=0&tstart=0

Still, I can't resist the opportunity to echo the comments of others...this is a glaring oversight by Apple. Many solutions Apple offers in the OWN support documentation suggest doing a Restore. OK, if they are offering this advice to so many people for so many problems you'd think they'd make it as simple a process as possible...which would include automatically rebuilding the app folder structure on the iDevice that is being restored. ARRGGGGHHHHHHH!

Sadly, in this case...It just DOESN'T work!!!!!!!

I'm baffled by the usefulness and point of resorting from a back up. It's either random or ****.

Firstly some apps restore back onto iPhone in the folders I had previously set up for them. But most apps just appear stretched out over 5 pages. So it means having to create new folders and trying to remember where the apps were kept pre-restore.

But the most annoying aspect is that some apps just didnt restore. I've realised at least 3 are missing. There's prob Amy more. Plus half my notes are missing.

When I did a phone back up I had about 300mb free memory from 16gb. When I restored the phone this increased to about 5gb free. I'm guessing its to do with apps not keeping their data. Eg music, amazon music player and some games.

Pretty rubbish feeling knowing next time I do a back up and restore some more stuff will go missing.

Fed up.

Yep, the solution posted by JPBOSS on that thread worked for me too. You need to do a second restore from backup. And I agree completely with your sentiments—this is a glaring bug which Apple has had years to fix, but evidently still hasn't. I can confirm it still exists, restoring from iTunes backup in iTunes 12 (Yosemite) to iPad Air 2 (iOS 8). I wonder how many poor frustrated souls have spent hours manually reorganising all their apps because Apple hasn't bothered to fix the way an iTunes restore works (presumably their attention is on iCloud now)!

Some additional info…

The first restore (for a new device) is like a full restore that wipes your device and then loads it up again with your app data and settings. In my experience, the first restore did NOT actually restore any apps to the device, even though they were all in iTunes. I had to then choose 'Sync' (or 'Apply') for it to do do this. That's when the weirdness really starts. In iTunes, it previewed the apps on my device in the same order they appear in the left side bar, but when they downloaded to the iPad, the order was different again. I couldn't work out the logic at all. In any case, neither arrangement resembled anything close to the way I had my apps organised before the iPad was backed up.

So as JPBOSS says, you need to do a second restore. In iTunes 12, go to the 'Summary' settings screen under your device name. IMPORTANT: Don't press the 'Restore iPad…' or 'Restore iPhone…' button in the top grey box. You don't want to wipe the apps that you just synced to your device. For the second restore, choose the 'Restore Backup…' button in the second grey box. Then choose the same backup you restored from the first time. After this, my apps were finally restored to their original order (aside from a whole bunch of new apps at the end, because 'Automatically install new apps' was ticked.)

One more thing… It's probably not a bad idea to archive your original backup as the very first step, so it's always there if things go wrong. I once had an iTunes backup fail, but when I tried to restore again, I discovered to my horror that iTunes had deleted the original backup and replaced it with a new, and completely useless one! You can archive a device backup in 'Preferences > Devices'. Right click on the backup and choose 'Archive'. Or you could always click 'Show in Finder' and then copy it to another folder manually.