Does iPad backup to iTunes save EVERYTHING on the iPad, including Apps, Notes, Reminders, all folders??

See What does iCloud back up? - Apple Support and About backups for iOS devices - Apple Support

Neither an iCloud's us nor an iTunes backup includes the actual apps, since those will be redownloaded from the App Store as needed. Some things are also only included if you use an encrypted iTunes backup. As far as what data an individual app includes for backup, that is up to the app developer to decide and include. Some apps, like many financial apps, do not allow anything to be saved in the backup file. Some games that require online registration and game play similarly store your data in your account, not on the device.

Unfortunately, there are many informations beyond those indicated in the respective service documents of Apple (see About backups for iOS devices - Apple Support), which are not restored:

• App groups (this can be a more than annoying competition to restore manually!)
• E-Mail accounts (at least those from other providers than the preset as Google etc.)
• calendar accounts (caldav, calendar abonnements)
• VPN settings.

Especially if you’re going to setup a new machine from the iTunes backup of an other type of machine (e.g. an iPad from an iPhone – which the service documents don’t call difficult in any way – you are facing a really big lot of work. Depending on your personal amount of Apps and accounts, take a weekend!

And I want to underline: The fact that these datas aren’t restored is in complete contradiction to the service documents mentioned above. And by the way in contradiction to my expectations in Apple’s way to solve problems in a user friendly way.

Moreover, the guy at the Genius Bar in Hannover (Germany) told me at the end of an useless debate that "I had to be happy if the restore procedure would succeed in restoring anything instead to be angry about and wonder why if it fails". If that’s the hidden philosophy of Apple in handling such problems, than I don’t really see were the difference to Asus, Lenovo etc. is.

My experience moving to a new iPad is, I did a full backup. THen restored the new one from the backup of the old one.

I did have to redownload apps, however the app data was backed up....so I had to spend time downloading 500+ megs of Smurfs VIllage, however when I opened it up it on the new device it was just as I'd left it on the old one.

So it seems, information and settings, yes. Y ou will need to redownload music, apps and movies to the device, yet files associated with the apps will be backed up and restored.

I also had a couple of apps that were no longer in the app store. iTunes restored those from my laptop to my iPad since I'd used iTunes to set up the device and kept the apps updated on my iTunes.

Moving to a new device is pretty much what you're wanting to do, back it up, wipe it, restore it from that backup so you should be fine. I didn't lose anything. if you do have some notes that are totally irreplaceable, then I'd suggest, just to be safe, e-mail them to yourself or temporarily upload them somewhere, just as a second copy.

I don't think it'll take several days, unless your internet is just horribly slow, but likely will a couple to few hours.

With your iPad plugged into your computer have you tried to download the updates via iTUnes? You could have those downloaded before starting the process and it should install them from your computer instead of downloading them. It does still take time for that much data to move however.

I'd suggest, once you get your backups made, that restoring it be something you do on a weekend or early in the evening. Just to give yourself a few hours for it to work. it's possible that you won't need that much time but I've always found it less stressful to allow extra time.

Actually, in my own experience at least 3 of the 4 things you mention are indeed included in a backup, at least in the encrypted iTunes backups I use to restore devices. My backups restore app folders in the same screen layout. All of my emails go back on and along with Apple I have gmail accounts and several for my own domains with my hosting service. My work Office 365 enterprise calendar account was also restored (I use a separate app for work email, Mail+ but sync my work calendar in the iOS mail app). I don’t use a VPN with my iOS devices so cannot speak to that.

Restoring my iPhone 6 backup to my iPhone 7 with iTunes and MacBook Pro last year took no more than a few hours to download all apps, resync all of my iTunes Music Library, my audiobooks, and about 5000 photos (I do not use icloud for photos and keep them on my Mac and selectively keep portions of that photo library on my iPhine and iPads). The only data I recall having to download was my Barnes and Noble Nook library as it is stored online with B&N so not part of the backup. All my apps were retained in their proper folders as they had been on the iPhone 6 and the folders in the same home screen layout as before. And things like dropbox and OneDrive files needed to be re-sync’d of course.

Basically i plugged the iPhone into iTunes, chose restore from backup, watched a movie that afternoon and in a few hours, had my iPhone 7 up and running just as I’d had with its predecessor - apps, folders, email accounts, and content as it had been. Wifi settings, passwords (in iCloud Keychain and mSecure) all restored also. The additional post-restore effort was minimal and restricted to re-sync’ing online data that was never part of the backup anyway.

There is more work when restoring an iPad from an iPhone backup or vice versa as in those situations yes, some things will be awry. Again, in my own experience, mainly folders and app layouts, since some apps do differ between the devices so the copy pulled from the App Store during restore may be a wholly different installer.

I do my backups to iTunes and when I bought my mini 4 and restored it from the backup of my 2, I recall everything moving over. I may have had to rejoin my home wifi, but my app folders and app settings were all the same. (Honestly I've had more issues with app settings changing themselves updating the iOS updates than I have had restoring from backup)

If your old device is running iOS9 and your new one iOS10, for example, there may be more time needed because you may have apps that need to be updated.

I didn't have to redownload all my apps to install them because they were already on my laptop, and it does take tme to move that much data around and install things. FOr a regular sized iPad I'd recommend people allocate 3-4 hours (32 - 64 gig) but for the newer larger capacity ones....more time will be needed just because more data is being moved around.

I don't do an encrypted backup and my new device was a near perfect clone of the old one. As I recall when I migrated from an iPod 4 to 5 and 6 it was the same way. I backup on the computer I also do my recreational surfing on so I'd just let it go and do my other business while it works.

When I bought my 6th gen, as I recall, I backed up my 5, wiped it, took it out to best buy, swapped it, paid the difference, came home, started the restore and had it done in a couple of hours.

You lucky ones. Your experience is what I did expect when starting the setup process for my brand new iPad Pro 10.5 by restoring it from a recent encrypted iTunes backup of my iPhone 6s plus. This is, also, what the service documents let you expect. And not at least it’s that what I would expect from Apple.

But it failed nearly completely, except the restauration of every single app completely mixed up and spread over 11 desktops, which I have to sort up now.

I tried it in two different ways:

- Setup the new iPad as a "new" iPad and restoring it afterwards.

- Setup the new iPad by restoring it immediately from the iTunes backup.

Both with the same poor result.

What makes me really, really unhappy is the incompetence in conjunction with unwillingness of the AppleCare service, who told me simply, "that’s not possible". The most horrible experience I made at the so called "Genius Bar" at Apple Store in Hannover, Germany, where – I don’t get tired to complain it – the master guy spent an enormous amount of time and breath to explain me some zen principles like that "we have to go forward instead to complain what we aren’t to change", that "I have to expect everything to go wrong and to be glad about every single thing that works well" and that I "should accept the solution he offered to me" (which solution consists simply in setting up everything manually).

No question about technical backgrounds (but inconsistent statements about "completely different system architectures"), no single try to look for a solution, not a single word of excuse for the trouble that Apple did prepare for me.

This was by far the worst experience with Apple and with every so called "support" I ever made. I could cry.

I think that you cannot expect the same results from restoring an iPhone backup to an iPad as you would restoring an iPad backup to an iPad. I just got a new iPad Pro and restored the backup of my old one and it worked exactly as expected/described, including saving all of my app groups.

Precisely. Not all apps are universal, meaning some have iPhone/iPod versions and iPad versions and they are different. Since they are different they have different data backups etc. THere are some apps where you must purchase both an iPad and iPhone/iPod version if you want to use it on two devices.

If I were to restore my iPad backup to my iPod only a few of the apps would transfer over because some are iPod/iPhone only. And vice versa.

I actually did that when I got my first iPad....I'd had an ipod before and tried to use the backup of one to the other and while many of the apps went across they were the smaller screened versions (Six years ago there were far less universal apps than there are now)

Many of my older apps I had to go and find the iPad versions. and with a phone there are also some apps that are specially made to be on a cellular device vs a wifi only one.

Crossing devices is like trying to restore a car with universal parts.....some will work, some will not.

Yeah, that’s all right about universal and machine specific apps, I know this.

But IF the apps are restored, be it from backup, be it by re-downloading them, why they have to be messed up as freaky as possible, and why can’t they get back into their original group folders? Why can’t these group folders be preserved?

And, moreover, all this has nothing to do with the other settings like email and calendar accounts or VPN which are completely gone.

And at last: If there are so many problems around these cross machine restores, I would expect that Apple does give us some hint instead of hiding them.

I have done the iPad backup restored to iPhone and vice versa, and while it does not go as seemlessly as when sticking with the same device type, I still got things like email, calendars and such restored properly.

The main thing I see with cross-device type restores is the folder issues. I think it is a result of the fact that non-universal apps have completely different installers for iphone and ipad, so the database that held the folder layout is messed up as it is literally a new and novel installer being downloaded, unpacked and installed. And apps are never restored from backup - they cannot be because they are not part of the backup. Apps themselves are always reinstalled from cached installers in your iTunes library or by downloading directly from the App Store. The only thing retained in the backup would be the plist file(s) related to folder layout and such.

But I have no answer for the email and other errors you've encountered since my restores have never shown those issues, sorry. I have 8 email accounts in iOS mail (one is POP, the others IMAP) plus one calendar only account and they've always restored to new devices fine.

I could see a profile dependent work email perhaps not restoring properly and having to be reset, but I gather none of the ones you're talking about are like that?