iPhone 6 "Restoring from iCloud Backup" forever

I Had the same problem. I went to iCloud, moved down to Backup stopped Restore & then went back to Software Update & tapped Install & it happened smoothly. Have lost nothing.

I am having the same problem. It's been 3 days. Going from a wifi iCloud iphone 5 back up to my iPhone 6 restore via wifi. I finally had to stop the backup because it was sucking my battery. This isn't the only thread on here complaining about this. There seems to be a problem and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of pepole are having this problem but don't even notice it. I'm going to try and dowload my pics manually to my MacBook pro and then do a manual backup into iTunes of my iPhone 5 and then do a restore from that via USB to my 6. Not the way I was hoping to spend my Saturday.

I made it through my restore, finally. Here's how:

While your iphone 6 is "restoring from iCloud" endlessly...

1. Backup your old iphone onto itunes while cable connected (this will be your most current backup)

This will take minutes.

2. Restore this backup to your iphone 6 while cable connected to itunes

This took 2 minutes to complete.

The icloud backup will terminate during this process.

3. After restore, update your iphone 6 to the latest update.

I think the problem has to do with the find my iphone function being active during the icloud restore. You will be asked to turn off this function during step 1 above.

My iphone 6 is restored although I did have to setup my email & calendar accounts but that's not an issue when you keep all that on the server where it belongs.

Turning off find my iPhone resolved this issue for me completely without having to do a restore via iTunes. Thank you for the tip!

I Have exactly the same problem and it's driving me mad! I received my phone on launch day. I have never used iTunes to backup I've always used iCloud. All my data is with iCloud and it has been restoring since the 19th! I decided to plug into iTunes and restore to factory settings and start over I would loose a few days of data but better than not being able to use the apps on my phone as they say waiting and downloading.

When I restarted my phone it had updated to ios8.2 so I thought yippee! But a day later I am still restoring from iCloud backup and still can't use my apps! This has been extremely frustrating and time consuming and I'm still not there . I no longer have my iPhone 5s as I cleared it and sold it thus I am stuck .

Same problem here. The lock screen on my iPhone 6 plus shows "Restoring from iCloud Backup". In addition, I can start a backup to iTunes, but after a few minutes it gets stuck saying "Preparing to copy items". I then have to click the little rotating wheel next to "iPhone" under Devices in the left side bar. This actually started after I followed an Apple tech's instructions on restoring my iPhone after he had me backup to iCloud, reload IOS 8.0 from scratch, and restore from iCloud (the reason for that procedure was to fix a problem with my touch screen not working poorly along the edges). Everything seems restored. I don't see any missing apps and all the ones I've used seem to work. But I can't complete a backup to iTunes or update to IOS 8.0.2 until I get past this restore from iCloud issue and the iTunes "Preparing to copy items" issue. I emailed the Apple tech I had been working with, but he hasn't gotten back to me yet (it's now 2 days later). As per one suggestion in this thread, I shut off Settings > iCloud > Find My iPhone, but it made no difference. Frustrating.

I was having the same problem, and I couldn't use iTunes to circumvent the problem, because I've never backed up my phone to iTunes. Also, I had already reset and sold the old phone.

This morning I opened the Pages, Numbers, and Keynote apps, and none of them had downloaded files. Even if you've never used those apps, they have recently been added to the iCloud in beta. There will be at least one sample document, spreadsheet, or presentation in there. Once I opened the apps, my phone downloaded those samples, and shortly after that, the iCloud restore finished and I was able to install the iOS update.

I was on wifi when I did that, but I'm not sure whether that's important.

I hope this helps someone else!

None of these steps above worked for me. However, what did work was going to Settings --> iCloud --> Backup and then selecting "Stop restoring iPhone." It warned me that I would lose any data not yet restored and wouldn't be able to back it up again later, but I already have everything, so I stopped restoring. Problem solved.

I'm having same issue - and no way to know if it has completed the restore of my phone from iCloud, as this is the only backup that worked now.

Originally I had upgraded my Iphone 5 to IOS 8 when it was available. Then had to take phone into AppleCare for replacement due to power button. I had thought that backup to my computer and icloud would work. but when I connected replacement phone to computer it said backup was corrupted and would not restore. So I had to rely on the iCloud Backup. After starting restore from icloud ( I think this option the phone presented me with), it seemed to start, but frequently since then I saw message that required a login and message about wifi with a "later" option when I was not connected. This kept occurring.

I havn't seen that option lately, but it's stuck in restoring state, and I'm hesitant to tell it to stop restoring if I dont' know if it's completed? any way to tell?

@baronbvp I am at 48 hours into restore and I want to "Stop restoring iPhone" as well. I also think I am not missing anything... Is there a checklist of the iCloud restore process or something I can reference to make sure I am not forgetting something that maybe is still restoring? Also is there any other reprecussion to pressing "Stop restoring iPhone" ?

I have sold and erased my old phone so iTunes backup is not an option for me here.

I don't know if there's a way to tell if the Restore is complete. All my music is there, whereas part of the way through some songs were grayed out. All my apps seem functional.

After the first night of my phone trying to restore from the iCloud all night, I decided that anything else missing I could re-add or download again if I needed to, so I just stopped the restoring process. It's such a simple fix that it must just not be able to complete the process on its own. On your iPhone, select Settings --> iCloud --> Backup and then select "Stop restoring iPhone." It immediately stopped the alert on the locked screen and my phone became normal. I have not noticed anything missing since I did it. My iPhone 6 works perfectly.

I say go for it. You'll wonder why you waited so long.

Someone said doing Settings -> iCloud -> Backup and selecting "Stop restoring iPhone" worked for him/her. When I get to "Backup" the slider on the right is set to "Off". If I select/click-on "Backup" I see "iCloud Backup" and a slider on the right, but they're all greyed out and I can't move the slider on or off. So my iCloud backups appear to be off, yet my lock screen always shows "Restoring from iCloud Backup" and off and on I get pop up messages reminding me that I'm still restoring from iCloud and do I want to allow that or stop it. So far I've always kept allowing it because I'm not 100% sure that I have everything. I'm expecting a call from Apple support today to help get this straightened out.

I purchased the new iPhone 6. Previous to moving content over I upgraded to iOS 8 and backed up in iCloud on my iPhone 5s. I received my iPhone on Friday, 9/19, and over 12 days later I am still getting the message "Restoring from iCloud Backup" on my home screen. I have done the following. 1) Turned off Find my iPhone, 2) Opened Numbers, Pages and Keynote to let the documents load, 3) Opened each app with a blue dot to see what is needed, 4) Opened each app with a badge number to make sure there isn't anything I need, 5) Deleted any apps with the blueprint overlay (which I don't need), 6) Restarted my iPhone. Still having the same message.

I don't want to restore from my backup made 12 days ago from iCloud. However, I'm afraid of stopping the restore process. With that said, I'm wondering if I should go ahead and stop the restore. My photos should be safe in iCloud, correct? If the photos aren't entirely downloaded, those should continue, correct? I have iTunes Match, so I should be able to download my music, correct? My documents should be in iCloud, correct? What else could possibly be downloading that would take almost 2 weeks? :-(

Please let me know if I'm overlooking something here. Is there something else I might lose if I stop the backup and "delete the apps". (I wish there was a way to pick and choose the apps to delete. Not knowing which apps and data will be deleted is the scary part!)

None of you seem willing to just try stopping the restore. I had two app icons that weren't completely there, and as soon as I clicked on them once I stopped restoring, they populated. Remember, just because you stop restoring from the iCloud doesn't mean you can't get data later from the cloud. It's the cloud - anything after the restore is downloaded in real time instead of restoring from a backup. If it's in the cloud, you can retrieve it.

I'm willing to stop the restore, but not if it means deleting apps or data. I cannot stop the restore via settings other than by doing a reset (note that Settings -> iCloud->Backup->iCloud_Backup is greyed out, maybe because I'm restoring?). Every now and then my lock screen gets a popup saying "(!) Continue Restoring? This iPhone has not been backed up recently because it has not finished being restored. Would you like to finish downloading any remaining purchases and media before backing up, or delete them along with any app data?" . Note that this popup says "delete them along with any app data". It doesn't tell me if that applies only to my iPhone or to both my iPhone and iCloud. That makes it appear that my only option is to continue restoring. I'm still waiting for an Apple support person to get back to me on this issue.