Can I restore a iPhone back up from time machine and if so how?

What version of OS X? Here's for Mountain Lion:

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11103

Also, read here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427

Follow the directions in the second support article I provided you a link for.

I backed up our daughter's iPod Touch last night before taking it to the Genius Bar for replacement today as it had a screen defect. Before dealing with hers I ran a restore from backup for our son's iPod Touch as the Genius Bar people suggested that might help with his battery life and when doing so iTunes offered me the choice of backups from the various devices we sync. So far so good. These choices included backups of my iPhone, my wife's iPad, our son's iPod Touch and our daughter's iPod Touch. I restored his from the correct back up and have no issue there. However, when I connected our daughter's new replacement iPod Touch I tried first to restore from backup and got a message that it couldn't be done because the backup was from an older version of something or other - I can't tell you precisely - and to set this new device up as a new device first. Having done that I then tried to restore from backup but the backup of her iPod Touch had gone and was now replaced with the backup of the brand new replacement, and very empty, iPod Touch. How can I find the correct backup so that I can restore all her stuff? I do use Time Machine to back everything up but cannot find where the particular backup files might be for the iOS devices that I sync with iTunes. Help!

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946

Thanks So now I've found that and can choose a time that I think will be appropriate, how on earth do I identify the right file and what do I do with it?

OK so this all seems to be a false alarm as strangely after a few attempts the correct version now appears when I try to restore. Thanks though and if I can work out what I did I'll post it in case it is helpful to anyone going forward.

I have a similar problem to those in this thread - I am trying to figure out if it's possible to restore an older iPhone back up from Time Machine. The problem arose because the iPhone is sometimes failing to receive phone calls. I'll skip the next two days' pain but the result was an Applecare guy advised I make a clean factory restore via iTunes, but WITHOUT restoring the data until we sort out the problem. However he failed to warn me I should first turn off 'automatically sync iPhone when connected' and so the newly-restored iphone synced and backed up the blank iphone, leaving me with only very old backups.

So I need to find out if there is a full back up of the iPhone in Time Machine, and if so, how I can install it.

Can anyone help me sleep?

You should be able to restore an older backup from Time Machine. Do it with Finder, not iTunes. Quit iTunes first. Then navigate to ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync (its a hidden file, so use Go/go to folder from the Finder menu). That's the folder to restore from Time Machine.

Hi Lawrence. Thanks so much for that advice - I'm really grateful. I hope you don't mind me asking a couple more questions: I have found that folder via Finder - I clicked on Library then App Support then Mobile Sync and within that, there's a folder called Backup and within that, 4 files. I also tried accessing it via the Go/go to folder method you suggested (in case that revealed more which remain hidden unless I use your route) but I couldn't make that route work.

I presume I'm looking at the correct files but please advise me if it's still possible that I'm not.

I had already tried to look at these backup files in Time Machine. They appear to be backed up, going back a year. If I can restore one from yesterday, that should solve my problem. However I've looked through them randomly going back a month or more, and they all seem to have been created in 2013, and last modified then. Only one of the files has a more recent 'last modified' date. But surely Time Machine has captured each backup of the iPhone going back over time? I'm baffled.

I hope the above makes sense. I'd be really grateful for any further advice.

steve

You are seeing folders, not files in the Backup folder. Each folder represents one device. Inside the folder you will see thousands of files with apparently random names. (Actually they ARE randomly generated.) Each one is a database from an app on the phone. The date on the folder is the date it was created. Look at the dates on individual files to see when they were last updated.

Hi Lawrence. Thanks for your very helpful advice. I presume, of course, that you mean I should look at the dates of those individual files (or some of them) in Time Machine, selecting a date before the problem happened. If that's correct (please let me know) then I have found file called plist which was updated on 7 July. As you say, there are many other random files in that folder too. So can I sleep safe, knowing that there is a pre-disaster backup of the iphone which I can restore back to my iPhone? (with Applecare assistance, probably) .

Again, I really appreciate your help with this.

Yes, the plist (parameter list) file is the index of a backup. The date of that file is the date of the backup.

Lawrence,

That sounds like good news. Again, many thanks.

Following your help Lawrence, then with subsequent guidance from Applecare, I've successfully restored the iPhone from the Time Machine backup. The first Time Machine backup I selected failed to copy - I got a heart-stopping error message half way through. But for some reason it worked with a different backup which had been created earlier on the day before the iTunes backup had been overwritten.

Many thanks for your guidance with it, Lawrence.

So what have I learned from this? If I had not had a Time Machine backup, I'd have lost all the data. And that's because when Applecare advised me to factory reset the iPhone to try to diagnose why the iPhone was often not receiving calls, the advisor omitted to warn me to check the box in iTunes to prevent automatic backups when the phone is connected to the Mac. (Next time I connected it, it overwrote the single backup - Apple's guy confirmed today that there is only one, which is updated by each new backup) .

So unless I've got some of this wrong, if you fail to check that box in iTunes and then connect a wiped phone (perhaps as part of a similar diagnostic mission) you lose all your data. Surely there should be far more built-in protection against such a potentially catastrophic data loss?