Q: iPhone 6 "Restoring from iCloud Backup" forever

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.

Thanks Yefchak for trying to explain, but your steps don't work.  When I plug my iPhone in, iTunes comes up automatically.  If I then select my iPhone under devices, I will see a "Backups" section, but in there the "Back Up Now" and "Restore Backup..." buttons are greyed out.  It does not matter if I select "iCloud" or "This computer", those buttons still remain greyed out.  I do see that a sync starts, but the sync seems to never finish (it hangs saying "Waiting for items to copy".  I assume the backup and restore buttons are greyed out because my iPhone thinks it is restoring from iCloud (which it's been doing now for about 6 days).  I finally was contacted by the Apple support person and we're going to work on this tomorrow morning.  Wish me luck.

this is how I fixed problem. Hold down all apps that are still waiting for  download and delete from phone(make sure you check all folders)  Go to store and re download all apps deleted. All the apps I replaced still had the data saved from before and the phone was no longer in restore mode.

I was able to fix this by connecting to iTunes with cable as others have suggested but rather than backup/restore I upgraded to 8.0.2. Once that was complete it finished the iCloud restore on its own.

The phone wouldn't start the upgrade on its own until the restore was complete but iTunes didn't have that restriction.

I had the same problem, and I switched off the "Find My iPhone" feature (by Settings > iCloud, then tap to turn off Find My [device]) - and immediately the backup was finished and the warning messages gone. Yay!

Hi i have had the same issue with restoring from icloud.

I restored from itunes back up and my apps have all installed but my photos have not downloaded.

It says 'Downloading' at the bottom of the screen in photos but nothing is downloading. ! have left it for an hour and still no photos have come up.

In the moments section it lists all the dates and places where the photos were taken but where the photos are its blank squares.

Has anybody experienced this or know a fix?

Your problem is a little different than mine but the solution might be the same.  I had my iPhone's lock screen saying "Restoring From iCloud" for about a week.  Working with Apple support, the final solution was to do a "Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset All Content and Settings" and then restore from a local backup I had on my iMac.  It might have worked for me to restore from iCloud again, but I didn't want to bother with that, not so long as there is no way to see what is going on during the restore as I would never know if it's progressing or stuck or what.  Maybe a higher level support person would have been able to tell me how/where I can see what is going on during a restore, but as it was, I just wanted to get past this issue and get on with my life.  If you have valid backups that are not too old, other than the those in iCloud, I would try the full reset and then restore from one of those backups.