Q&A: Backing Up an iPhone to Drive or Cloud

Q.

What gets backed up on the iPhone when it says it’s “backing up” in iTunes? Is backing up to iCloud better?

A.

The iTunes program makes a fairly detailed backup file of your iPhone’s contents. Items that are copied for safe-keeping include your contacts, calendars, the pictures in the Camera Roll album, the iPhone’s call history file, notes, Safari bookmarks, text messages and mail account settings. Apple compiled a full list of content copied during the backup process here.

If you ever have to erase your phone’s contents as part of a system reinstallation or troubleshooting process, you can restore the backed-up content by right-clicking on the iPhone’s icon in the iTunes window and selecting the Restore from Backup menu item. If you plug in a brand new iPhone, iTunes offers to restore the backup from your old phone to the new one so you do not have to start setting it up from scratch.

If you do not want to back up the phone to iTunes, you can back up many files and settings with Apple’s free iCloud service instead. You do need to have a Wi-Fi connection and an iCloud account, as well as the iOS 5 software (or later) on the iPhone.

The iCloud server gives you five free gigabytes of space to back up files from your iOS devices and you can buy more space if needed. Using iCloud frees you from having to be near the computer (or using iTunes in the first place) to back up the phone. You can also restore content to the phone from iCloud.

While iCloud backs up your phone’s settings, text messages, Camera Roll photos, mail, contacts, calendars and app data, it does not grab everything that iTunes does during a backup. Music and videos that you did not buy in the iTunes Store are not backed up to iCloud, nor are podcasts and audiobooks. Pictures from your computer that you may have synced over to photo albums on the iPhone are not backed up to iCloud either, but can be restored by syncing the phone with iTunes.