Had a phone set up to back up to iCloud. That phone went dead, and was returned to Apple and exchanged with a new one. Because the screen went dead -- thus rendering the phone inoperable -- I was unable to shut off iCloud backups and delete the old backup.
Right now, I can't delete the old phone's iCloud backup, and I don't have enough space to start backups on the replacement phone. How can I resolve this?
Thank you Dr.Koll. I can understand the frustration it comes when getting a brand-new phone and this issue comes up. I am glad my method helped.
please let me know what happened with you i have the same problem, my phone burned and went totally dead, i bought another iphone, when i logged in my new phone i activated it with my icloud account, i cant back up now my new phone no storage give me, and i cant delete my last back up it says "cant be deleted its in use"!! i dont know how to solve this problem. please let me know how to fix that.
Mine is still there =(
I upgraded from a 5c to a 6s in October. I activated the new phone and installed from a recent backup. However... there is a "backups" section in my iCloud (I only use the free 5GB of space, no additional storage) that I cannot access and delete. I've deleted all old backups and now I am completely stuck. I would relay between backing up to iCloud and having a hard backup on my laptop. I just went to backup my phone so I could try restoring but I'm getting this error. totally stumped. can't follow the instructions left by Maine because I don't have those options. help?
You are showing an iTunes backup error message, and an iCloud backup Manage Storage screen. The backup you need to delete is in iTunes, not in iCloud. Open iTunes and click on Preferences>Devices, click on the backup that is causing the issue, and delete it by selecting it, then clicking on Delete Backup.
Cheers,
GB
Thank you Gail! That worked to resolve the iTunes error .
However... the fact remains that the iCloud backups are inaccessible to delete. my iPad has a ~1.5GB backup. but the majority of the 5GB is occupied by "backups" that I can't seem to remove. The screenshots I posted that show the 28KB Mail backup don't account for where the mysterious 3ish GB backup is coming from. Thoughts?
OK, but again, the screenshots you have posted are for the iCloud backup info via your Mac under System Preferences>iCloud. Have you looked on your iPhone under Settings>iCloud>Storage>Manage Storage? You should see any device listed there that have backups, and then once you select that device, you should be able to scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on Delete Backup.
If you do not see any backups listed under Settings>iCloud, then you will have to call Apple Support. Some folks have had issues with their iCloud storage not being freed up correctly and Apple is the only one who can fix these kinds of issues:
Best of luck! 🙂
GB
Thanks!! Worked for me
Can't delete old iCloud backup
