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restore itunes to earlier date for older backup

Hi ..

I just had my iphone4 upgraded to the latest os .. prior to the upgrade, i synced my contacts and noted using outlook ... however, after the upgrade, when i tried to restore, nothing happened ... so i kept trying, until i discovered that my old backup have been changed to a different date (after the upgrade) ... which means my old backup is gone! is there any way i can restore an older backup? can i do a system restore of itunes or something? help!!!!! by the way, i am using windows 7 ... thanks!

Posted on Jul 2, 2012 8:10 AM

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37 replies

Jul 2, 2012 8:16 AM in response to asiawitch

Every new backup replaces the old one. Only if you included the iTunes backup folder into your PC backup routine, you could be able to restore that one and get back your old backup from the time before the update.

The folder is located here:

Windows Vista and Windows 7:\Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\

Note: To quickly access the AppData folder, click Start. In the search bar, type %appdata% and press theReturn key.

copied from iTunes: About iOS backups

Jul 2, 2012 8:45 AM in response to asiawitch

If you included that whole folder into your PC backup routine, restore that whole folder with all the content inside.

This will bring back the backup from that point in time again, and you will be seeing it in the list in iTunes/Edit/Preferences/Devices.

Only if you can choose the backup from that list, you'll be able to restore your data.

Jul 10, 2012 12:06 PM in response to Ingo2711

This all helped me so much, thanks. The only thing left I'm havin problems with is I found the folder I want to restore it back to. I went through the %appdata% and all and the dated folder I'd like opens into 3 separate ones. I figure I need all of them but don't know how to open them into iTunes. Do I move it somewhere? So I can see it when I right click the device name?

Jul 10, 2012 12:26 PM in response to Ashley Rains

When you say "3 separate ones" I assume that you mean that you found 3 separate backup files in your old backup folder. If so, you want to restore all 3 by restoring the entire backup folder and all of its contents.


Go to \Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\ and rename to existing backup folder to something like Backup.old (so it becomes \Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup.old. Then, as Ingo2711 posted earlier, restore the entire Backup folder from your computer backup to your ts original location on your hard drive. You should now have these two folders on your hard drive:


\Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup.old (your renamed current folder) and


\Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup (the older folder restored from your backup)


Now open iTunes on your computer and go to Preferences>Devices and look at the backup list. It should now show your earlier backup(s) that were in the earlier backup folder that you restored from your computer backup. If so, you can now connect your phone to your computer, right-click on the name of your phone on the left side of iTunes (like the image posted above), select Restore from Backup and when prompted choose the earlier backup you want to restore to your phone.

Jul 13, 2012 10:15 PM in response to Ashley Rains

Depends on where you backed them up. You said earlier that you found the Backup folder you wanted to restore. Copy it from whatever location you found it in to \Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\. If it's on another hard drive on your computer or an external drive attached to your computer, copy it using windows explorer. If it's on another computer copy it to a usb/thumb drive and then import it to the computer you want to move it to.

Jul 13, 2012 10:34 PM in response to randers4

I did that and it's still not showing up in iTunes. Someone told me I needed an older version of iTunes that had some sort of option that it doesn't have any more where I could open the file manually I think but I don't know which version it is.

And I found the file under backup after MobileSync, just for some reason it simply won't show up in iTunes

Jul 14, 2012 11:55 AM in response to Ashley Rains

Not sure what to tell you then. If your backup files, which have long alphanumeric filenames, are located in the Backup folder in this location: \Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup they should be visible in iTunes. If for some reason they aren't I don't know the solution. You may want to post your question over in the iTunes for Windows forum since this is an iTunes issue, not an iPhone issue. Perhaps they have some suggestions over there.

Jul 15, 2012 9:42 AM in response to eelsayu

Well I called Apple for support and told them only one back up file showed up in iTunes and asked how to make the others show up. They said there's no way to but one of my friends said there's an older version of iTunes that has an option that would allow it.

Any time I try to download an older version though I can't open it and have to ultamilty restore my computer back to before I downloaded the older version because I can't open the most updated one either.


So I'm thinking about selling it because Apple is a joke. Wish I could talk to Steve Jobs and have him fix it but you know.

restore itunes to earlier date for older backup

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