The 4 Best Ways to Backup Your iPhone to Your Computer or iCloud

How to easily backup your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad

Backing up your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad is becoming increasingly important as more and more data is being stored on these devices. Just remember, as you take more photos on your device, and send more messages, the more precious data you could potentially lose if anything was to happen to it.

This guide provides details of 4 ways to backup your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch and info of what data is stored in different types of backup.

Quick jump to the four reviewed iPhone backup methods:

• >1. Backup iPhone to Your Computer
• >2. Backup to iCloud
• >3. Create an iTunes Backup
• >4. Backup to macOS Catalina and higher

What is a backup?

A backup is essentially a safety net for your devices. When a backup is created from an iPhone, a snapshot of that device's data is saved to somewhere other than the iPhone (a computer for example). This snapshot contains data such as Photos, Messages and Contacts, but does not contain certain information like data stored in iCloud, Apple Pay information, or Touch ID settings. Note that you'll need to use a third-party app such like TouchCopy to backup your music library from an iPhone to computer.

Why should I backup my iPhone?

Backing up your iPhone is becoming increasingly important as more and more data is being stored on these devices. Just remember, as you take more photos on your iPhone, and send more messages, the more precious data you could potentially lose if anything was to happen to your device. If you make regular backups, however, if your iPhone was to break, or data was to get lost after an update on your phone, you would be able to safely recover your data using your backup!

1. Backup iPhone to Your Computer With TouchCopy

If you wish to be fully in control which of your iPhone data is backed up to your computer, we recommend the TouchCopy software. This option is for users who desire ease-of-use and an intuitive interface, as well as extra control enabling you to backup individual photos, contacts, messages etc. Additionally, iTunes and iCloud backups do not contain certain files such your songs and music videos, which can all be saved with TouchCopy.

TouchCopy can access your iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch data, allowing you to browse through it on your PC or Mac computer. From there, you can choose what to copy from your device to your computer. You can transfer music from iPhone to a PC or Mac, backup contacts, save messages as PDF or print them off, TouchCopy can do it all. Here's how:

1. Download TouchCopy on your computer and run it.
2. Connect your iPhone to your computer using your USB cable.
3. Navigate through your iPhone data using the tabs in TouchCopy.
4. Select data you wish to backup to your PC or Mac, and copy it!

Summary (TouchCopy):

✔ Stores files on your PC or Mac
✔ Can save all files on your iPhone including your music and videos
✔ Store data up to your computer's available space
✔ Transfer only what you need to your computer
✔ Full control of what is transferred between iPhone and computer
✔ Popular and Trusted software

Get TouchCopy

Download TouchCopy Now

2. Backup iPhone to iCloud

Next up is iCloud. iCloud is great for a number of reasons: it stores your backup data in the cloud, rather than on your PC, so you don't take up valuable PC space; and you can then access your backup data from anywhere with Wi-Fi (as long as you know your Apple ID and password, of course!). You can even set up automatic iCloud backups for whenever your iPhone is connected to power, locked and on Wi-Fi - so you don't have to worry about doing it manually.

The downsides here are that you only get 5GB of free iCloud storage space. If you need more, you'll have to pay for it. Also, unlike TouchCopy above, you can't access data from iCloud backups manually to copy out specific songs, or messages etc.

What is backed up in an iCloud backup?

Here's how to backup iPhone with iCloud...

1. Open 'Settings' from the app screen on your iPhone.
2. Tap your username entry.
3. Scroll down and hit 'iCloud' > 'iCloud Backup'.
4. Tap 'Back Up Now'.

And then...

Summary (iCloud):

✔ Stores backups in iCloud
✔ 5GB free storage (payment needed for more)
✔ Encrypted backups
✔ Create and use backups over Wi-Fi
✔ Able to use backup to restore to iPhone

3. Backup iPhone to iTunes

In this method we'll cover is backing up using iTunes. This backup is similar to the iCloud backup, in that you can use the backup to restore the snapshot to your iPhone. The difference here is that the backup will be stored on your computer, rather than in the cloud- so you don't have to worry about paying for extra space, but you won't be able to access the backup over Wi-Fi on another computer.

What is backed up in an iTunes backup?

Here's how to backup iPhone with iTunes...

1. Launch iTunes on your computer.
2. Connect your iPhone.
3. In iTunes, click your device icon.
4. Under 'Backups' click 'Back Up Now'.

Summary (iTunes):

✔ Stores backups on PC or Mac
✔ Optional backup encryption
✔ Create and use backups on your PC or Mac
✔ Able to use backup to restore to iPhone

4. Backup to macOS Catalina and higher

Our final method covers those of you who are using macOS Catalina or higher. As you may have noticed, iTunes has now been replaced with the Music app on systems running Catalina. As such, the steps to backup your iPhone have changed slightly.

Rather than using iTunes to backup your iPhone, you'll now need to use the Finder app. Here's how it's done:

1. Launch Finder on your Mac.
2. Connect your iPhone.
3. Select your device from the list.
4. Choose "Back up all the data on your iPhone to this Mac".
5. Click 'Back Up Now'.

You can also choose to backup your iPhone to iCloud from here. To do this, simply choose "Back up your most important data on your iPhone to iCloud" before clicking "Backup Now".

Note: If you wish to save Health and Activity data from your device, you'll need to encrypt your backup. To do this, click the "Encrypt device backup" checkbox. You'll be prompted to set a password to protect your encrypted backup. Make sure you keep your password safe, as you'll need this to access or recover your encrypted backup.

Summary (macOS Catalina and higher):

✔ Stores backups on Mac
✔ Optional backup encryption
✔ Create and use backups on your Mac
✔ Able to use backup to restore to iPhone

Thanks for reading!