Hello to all. Am a recent user of iPhone 5. Whenever I plug in my phone to my Mac, there appears to be a back up of data being performed by iTunes. Can I access this data on my iMac and if so where?
Thanks in advance.
iPhone 5, iOS 6.1.4
See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946 and Where backups are stored on your computer.
See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946 and Where backups are stored on your computer.
You cannot access it directly because it is in a proprietary database format. However, there are programs that will allow you to see and extract data from the backup. See: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4946 for information on backups in general. Do a web search for "iphone backup extractor" to find apps that will let you see and save your backup's contents.
You can disable the automatic backup by going to iTunes Preferences, Devices tab and checking the box to prevent automatic syncing. There are also other backup options, including iCloud backups. See: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5262
Lawrence Finch wrote:
You cannot access it directly because it is in a proprietary database format.
Actually, not proprietary, rather its an SQLite Database.
Well, yes, but to most people who have never heard of SQLite it is proprietary 😉
Thanks Lawrence Finch for the further information.
I neither know what a proprietary database is nor what a SQLite database is!
Searched for the 'iphone backup extractor' as instructed and 'learnt' [vaguely understood] what this is all about.
I hope that this 'information' which I have 'gathered' in this matter will not be required by me!
The most important thing to know is that there is a backup, and that you keep a current backup in case things go wrong. The problem users get into is not having a backup and suddenly they have to restore their device and find themselves back at the starting point.
Keep a good backup, whether on a computer or in iCloud as self-protection.
Thanks Ralph. There is already a backup on my Mac thanks to the self contained feature thoughfully provided by Apple.
Have not yet dabbled with iCloud but perhaps it is better to have a backup at least of my contacts up there in the clouds!
First of all, you should know that the data in your iPhone can only be seen but you have no access to them.
Many iPhone users are very care about the security of their iPhone data, so do I. I used to connect my iPhone to computer and synced the data to computer at the same time. Once I want to recover my data of iPhone, I will use the iPhone backup extractor to export my data to iPhone again, it does a lot of good to my iPhone data.
Welcome to the Apple Support Community. I see that you just registered today, and all you posted were promotions for commercial software of totally unkown effectiveness and safety.
I am sure you are well compensated for promoting this software of dubious value and outrageous price, especially when there are many free or inexpensive programs that do the same thing.
Not to mention the underhanded marketing, claiming that it is FREE until you try to use it and find out that you may have to pay up to $100 to actually make it useful.
What do you reccomend?
When upgrading to IOS 7, do you lose your date (pictures) already on the phone?
You don't lose anything if you back up your phone before upgrading. I made 3 backups; one to iCloud and two to my computer. The way to keep multiple backups is to go to iTunes Preferences -> Devices, right click on the most recent backup, and choose "Archive". The next backup will be a full backup, and you will have both available.
If you back up over the air you also will not lose anything unless something goes wrong in the upgrade process, but then you have your backups to restore from.
Hello Lawrence, this thread has been pleasantly hijacked: I'd been wanting to pose the same questions related the latest update to version 7 and have found that you have answered most of them even before I could start a thread!
One doubt needs to be clarified: can we, if required, restore the iPhone's data via iTunes? This question may be appearing silly, but what to do, I need to ask?!
If you back up to iTunes you can restore from iTunes. And if you have archived backups in Preferences you can restore any of the backups, current or archived.
I just did this yesterday. I got a warranty replacement phone, connected it to iTunes and activated it. iTunes recognized it was a new phone, and gave me the option to restore my backup. This took less than 5 minutes. It then synced my music and apps. When everything finished my new phone was identical to my old phone.
One note for desanantonio - you should also save your Camera Roll photos to your computer for extra security. If you connect the phone to your computer the Camera Roll will appear as a digital camera, and you can copy the photos to your computer with any photo management app or just by dragging from Explorer in Windows or Finder on a Mac.
Lawrence, I tried what you recommended, but when I right-clicked on the most recent archive, nothing happened. I did not get an Archive choice or any pop-ups at all. Is it just as effective to manually copy the backup directory to an external hard drive so I can back up to a specific point in time?
My only concern is that the "Last backup" in iTunes says 10/12, but when I go to the MobileSync\Backup directory, the folder there has a date of 10/3, and all of the files are dated 10/3. I'm hoping my backup from today is somehow in there...
Sorry, I meant I right-clicked on the Backup (not Archive)...
Where can I find my iPhone's backup?
