Why does it take several hours to backup my iPhone 7 to my computer?

Question

Why does it take several hours to backup my iPhone 7 to my computer?

I have a prior backup from a week ago that took 9 hours to finish. I am trying to backup to my computer again and the estimated time in iTunes is 10 hours. This is ridiculous! I have searched online and can only find solutions that are 5+ years old or for iCloud backups. I backup to iCloud every night automatically, but I need a computer backup to use an app to extract my messages and notes to PDF. I also do not want to trust iCloud for all backups, I want to also backup to my computer.

It does not take that long to backup to iCloud, so why should it take that long to backup to my computer?

Do not tell me I have to delete every single application and then reload one by one! That is WAY too much time to spend and there has to be another fix. If an application is corrupt, doesn't Apple have a way to detect that and update the application? They cannot expect anyone to spend that kind of time to fix this problem!

I am using the Photos app and am storing my photos in iCloud, so I do not have a camera roll album to delete photos from manually. I do not understand why there would be any problem with a backup when iTunes is not backing up my photos anymore.

I have an iPhone 7 with 256GB of storage, and am using about half of that for music, movies, photos (whatever is automatically put there with the iCloud sync), and apps. I understand why a backup might take an hour, maybe - but an entire day is unacceptable to expect someone to do frequently enough to protect their data. *** is going on?!?!

iPhone 7, iOS 10.3.3, 256GB

Posted on Aug 18, 2017 5:57 PM

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Answer 1

wejo7185

Level 1

13 points

Dec 21, 2017 4:59 PM in response to Nowheregirlme

I have the same problem. Plugged directly into MacBook Pro with 1TB, tons of free space and iPhone has 162 GB free. Today it took forever, and when I checked at some point it was "done," but no backup was there. It said that this iPhone has never been backed up before.

Now I'm trying again with iTunes again, directly plugged in, backing to my computer. Need encrypted one for my Apple Watch. When I did this with the iPhone 7, I didn't have the problem. But it has already been almost two hours, and the bar is maybe a tenth of the way across. Will I wait nine hours and not have it work? I'm not paying for iCloud to back up this large a phone file.

I just want the backup so I can get my new watch out! Excited for that, but irritated once again with Apple. I never used to have problems with Apple or their products. Thanks for listening (reading)...

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Answer 2

Aug 18, 2017 6:48 PM in response to Philly_Phan

I am trying to backup to my computer, not using the internet or iCloud.

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Answer 3

Aug 18, 2017 6:58 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

I have a 1TB hard drive and 300GB of free space available. My iPhone is plugged in directly to the back of my iMac with the cable that came with my iPhone 7. I do not understand why it is taking so fricking long to backup to my hard drive. I am not sharing analytics and using the cloud for photo syncing with the Photos app. I don't get what is slowing it down, but I have had this problem with my previous iPhone 6 and it has just gotten progressively worse. I thought it would be better with the 7 after replacing my 6 in June 2017, iCloud setup was no problem but the computer backup has been intolerably slow.

I did not delete camera roll when I changed to uploading my photos to iCloud (which was done in late June). Did I need to import and then delete the camera roll before syncing the photos to iCloud? If so - why wouldn't Apple have told me to do that in the Photos/icloud setup?? I cannot delete any photos from my phone now without deleting them from everywhere.

This is just so stupid ... it is making me think of replacing my iMac with a PC laptop instead of a MacBook if I cannot get this to work right because I do not have time for this!

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Answer 4

Aug 18, 2017 6:35 PM in response to Nowheregirlme

Are you backing up using a USB connection or WiFi? Whichever one you are using, try the other. As the phone does not back up music or apps, only settings and app data, it should take a minute or two if both the phone and computer are working; never more than 10 minutes. You should make sure it isn't a matter of USB conflicts. Use a USB port directly on your computer, not a hub. If it's an older desktop or tower computer with USB ports on both back and front use a back port. And if you have any USB devices that draw power (such as USB drives that don't have their own power) try disconnecting them.

How much available disk space do you have? If your space is tight, try defragging the drive.

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Answer 5

Aug 18, 2017 6:41 PM in response to Philly_Phan

Hubs matter if they are unpowered. The phone needs a minimum of 1/2 amp from the USB port in order to sync. Unpowered hubs can't supply that unless the phone is the only thing plugged into it. Also, some inexpensive hubs add a timing delay that causes iTunes to time out or to slow down.

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