Restore from backup doesn't restore apps

I finally updated my iPhone to 5.1. I waited so long because of the fiasco updating my iPod Touch when 5.0 first came out. I thought it worked, I was pleased Apple worked out the bugs. Lo and behold, all of my apps and folders disappeared before my eyes. No problem I thought, I did a back up. Restore from back up. Fifteen minutes later, it looks exactly the same. Isn't a backup supposed to be of everything on the system so that if something goes wrong, you just revert back to the back up and either try again or wait for the process to be fixed? Seriously, get your stuff together.

Posted on May 3, 2012 7:44 PM

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10 replies

May 3, 2012 7:48 PM in response to hmhill17

1. You are not addressing Apple, only fellow users.

2. Backups only store App Data, not applications themselves. Described in this article: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946?locale=en_AU&viewlocale=en_AU


If you had the applications transferred to your computer you can sync them accross, if not, you can download them from the App Store again for free by going into the App Store, then into Updates, and then into Purchased.


-ThatGuy

May 3, 2012 7:48 PM in response to hmhill17

Itunes content is not part of the backup that itunes performs.


You should be transferring any purchases made on your device to your computer regularly, particularly before any update.


If you failed to do this then redownload:


Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store



" Isn't a backup supposed to be of everything on the system so that if something goes wrong"


NO. Everything should be on your computer. The iphone simply mirrors the selected content of your computer.


Tunes will back up the following information

Jun 30, 2012 3:15 PM in response to hmhill17

hmhill17


You are correct. The expectation of behaviour is what should happen and has ever since ios 1.


It is either a bug in the latest itunes or Apple has disabled it to push iCloud backup in one of those stupid moves that Apple occassionally do.


Suggest you raise the fault through the iTunes feedback page.


I just went through the same experience to restore an earlier backup and instead of a snapshot from that day i have a wiped and useless ipad. This is not how it was behaving prior to March 2012 when I last had to do a restore.


<Edited By Host>

Sep 12, 2012 5:30 PM in response to hmhill17

After trying every imaginable method to fix my partner's phone (plugging/unplugging, cleaning, reset, restore), I ended up blasting it with the hair dryer. First on hot for 15 seconds, again on hot for 15 seconds and finally on cool air for a good 30 seconds. Hit the play button and the sound came back! I think she must have got moisture in the headphone jack. So if you don't see any visible grime or lint, moisture is likely the issue.

Sep 29, 2013 1:26 AM in response to hmhill17


I tried this out last night and got some mixed results.


  1. Imported my Photos and videos to my pc
  2. Sync with iTunes to transfer purchased songs to iTunes
  3. Ran iCloud backup manually
  4. Backup iPhone with iTunes
  5. Clicked on Restore on the Summary tab of iTunes. It downloaded the latest iOS update first and then attempted to restore the phone but failed. I did some searching on google and figured I also needed to update iTunes itself. So I did that and then I was able to restore the phone
  6. However after restore was complete, iTunes asked how I want to setup the phone, setup as new or from the last backup through iTunes. There was no option to restore from iCloud. Good thing you suggested I do the backup with iTunes, so I didn't break any sweat and went ahead and restored from my backup. After the restore was completed, over 75% of my apps were gone including a bunch that had important data in them. I started to freak out and immediately turned off iCloud backup on my phone so that my data in iCloud would not get clobbered by a new backup from my newly restored phone.
  7. I then decided out of curiousity to re-install one of my missing apps and to my pleasant surprise, my personal information like debit card was already keyed in! I got so excited and brave I decided to re-install GoodReader which has a ton of PDF docs of mine in it. And sure enough all my data was on my phone. To cut a long story short I didn't lose any data.
  8. However because I am not going to bother re-installing all my apps now ( I prefer the "clean" iphone), it occurs to me that there is a bunch of "orphaned" data on my (the missing apps) and there is no way to get rid of that. Any suggestions on how to clean that up?
  9. Lastly, should I now enable iCloud so that my new data clobbers what is in iCloud?


I was kinda dissapointed that iCloud didn't work as I expected it to when trying to restore as that would have been a cleaner install as I only specified certain apps to be backed up in iCloud

Read more: http://www.recovery-ipad.com/

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Restore from backup doesn't restore apps

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