itunes could not backup the iphone because an error occurred while reading from or writing to the iphone

I had this issue and I found that the restore process took almost 11GB from my hard drive... (I guess this may change depending the size of your backup) leaving me out of space and giving me that error... I cleared some space before restoring my iphone and no errors came up... Hope this helps

Read/write usually happens when permissions don't align. Check your computer for backups of that phone that have different permissions (one would be encrypted, the other wouldn't be). You can find them in iTunes by going to (WINDOWS) Edit > Preferences > Devices (MAC) iTunes > Preferences > Devices and there will be a button to "Delete Backup".

Alternatively, you can locate the files that make up your backup by following Locate backups of your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support and moving the file with the huge random filename to another location on your computer or a USB. This means that you keep your information rather than deleting it, but does the same effect of clearing out iTunes backups folder.

Good luck!

What I discovered helps my phone sync/backup are two things:

1) Turn Carbonite off

2) On Webroot, click "pause security keyboard entry" so there is a check mark beside the box.

Feel free to uncheck Webroot keyboard and restart Carbonite as soon as your iphone is finished syncing with your iTunes.

It's probably a good idea to make sure all iphone apps are up to date since once that caused an additional problem for me.

I hope this works for you. Good luck!

Had the same problem and error message and it turned out as another poster said to be the hard drive space had run out. Itunes makes a copy of your backup, so you need TWICE the space of your backup file to be able to restore.

Hello bexaloy,

I see from your post that you aren’t able to successfully back up your iPhone to iTunes. You’re getting an error. I know how important it is to back up your phone. I’ll be happy to help.

Take a look at this article: If your iTunes backup couldn't be completed or you can't restore from a backup

Let us know if this helps.

Take care.

Same thing just happened to me. I read through the internet posts...the one that worked was to create more hard drive space on the computer where the back up was. Once i did that, everything it worked.

Hi

Appple support will not be able to help much besides the usual deleting icloud backups and deleting some apps.

This is caused by corrupt images in your library (from whatsapp) in my instance.

On a mac you can use Image Capture app to backup all your images. This will tell you any images that were corrupt and could not be backed up - delete files from iphone.

You can also use the Photos app to rebuild the library (start the app using optio+command)

I tried backing up my phone on my new laptop and got the same error. I tried everything I could find online but nothing fixed it. I managed to finally fix it by going to account>authorizations>authorize this computer and authorizing my new laptop under my apple id

Hi

Don't use your pc

Go to iCloud on iPhone make sure iCloud back up is on Then backup now over your wifi.

When you charge an iphone /ipad it automatically backs up to iCloud Over your wifi.

I haven't used my pc For backup for 3 years All done over wifi.

Cheers

Brian 🇬-1F1E7;

I had this happen to me and I discovered it was because of a lack of hard drive space on the drive where the backup files are located. For some reason, iTunes created 3 duplicates of a single device backup and it ate up my drive space.

Thanks breezy,

I also tried all of the suggestions mentioned previous to this suggestion, but it was the action of deleting all of the pre-IOS 11 apps that provided a solution for me.

I wholeheartedly agree about the useless error messages that should be more informative.

found out that Windows PC HDD was full

Trying to release some storage so that backup can be restored

Hi

You need to backup to iCloud Over your wifi without using your pc.

Go to iCloud make sure iCloud back up is on Then backup now over your wifi

When you charge an iphone /ipad it automatically backs up to iCloud Over your wifi.

I haven't used pc for backup for 3 years Almost everything can be done over your wifi.

Cheers

Brian 🇬-1F1E7;

Hi Reese, you can find this in iTunes. Look at the top menu. You'll see "Account", then Authorize, Select Authorize this computer

Go to:

-settings

-General

-About

-Applications

You will see a list of apps which do not work with IOS 11 and must be updated to continue using them 🙂

I just happened to chance into this, so easier to find the apps and delete them. thanks