IPhone Backup Questions?

Hi. Not sure which subforum to post this on but can the mods move it to the correct one? Have an iphone 13 mini that I will most likely need a battery replacement. Have an older iPhone SE 1st generation where the battery shows service and basically unusable. I most likely will get a new battery for the iphone 13 mini.


I only have that 5gb of icloud free and never paid for more icloud. Seems to be $0.99 for 50gb or $2.99 for 200gb. I do have over 50gb on my iphone 13 mini. I know you should backup your files on the iPhone before you do a battery replacement. I considered getting a battery replacement for the older iPhone SE 1st generation but I don't think I probably will do that as the cost of it is more than the samed phone on ebay. Of course the battery would be 100% though if new battery.


I want to backup both my iphone 13 mini and my iphone SE 1st generation. Both of them use the same apple id email. What I like to do is first back up my older iPhone SE 1st generation. I think I have like under 40gb used up. I would back it up. Then factory reset it. Then try to use it to see if it's as bad as it is now. Phone is not usable. When you click on anything It might work but then it would shut off. Then if it turns back on, battery might show 35% or something or show 10%. Would a factory restore probably help or not? I know the main issue is the battery. I then would sync the phone back with the backup. But if I do that, would it at least function better than it is now or not?


For my iphone 13 mini, I want to do the same thing. Is there any harm in doing this or not? The thing is my iphone 13 mini is a bit slow and lag a bit but it isn't that bad. It is usable. I feel like I could still use it without a battery replacement for a bit though the battery is below 80% almost where people say that is when you should replace the battery. The thing here is how do I create a backup of each iPhone where I won't backup the data on the old iPhone to the newer iPhone 13 mini and vice versa? I don't want those files to mix. Would I need to use 2 different emails on each iPhone? All I recall was when I got the iPhone 13 mini years ago, I did not have any paid icloud and never did. I think it did backup my important information like contacts even if I didn't have paid icloud. Is that correct or not? I don't think I remember myself manually adding each phone number to my contact. I believe when I downloaded WeChat and Whatsapp, everything was there except my chat history though for WeChat. I know my whatsapp messages from then was backed up as I notice the old Whatsapp messages from before I bought he iphone 13 mini being there.


Does anyone have advice on how do I do this for each of these iphones? The thing that has me confused is how do you make sure the backup for each iPhone isn't mixed with one another? I want to make sure when I backup the data on iPhone 13 mini, when I sync the data back, it's only that and vice versa. The thing is if I use 2 separate apple IDs, could one icloud account still do this? I would only sign up for that icloud $2.99 for 200gb probably for a month and then cancel it probably for this reason. But that is not good because if I have something happen to phone, then I lose all my information right except the small amount that is saved from icloud? So which of the 5gb does icloud save for free then? I know it does because when I got a new iPhone 13 mini years ago, I did sync my contact I believe and Whatsapp. Can someone tell me the best way to do this? How long does it take on average for 10gb to backup assuming cable internet? So that way I know of 50gb or 100gb of backup.

You do not need to backup to Icloud at a cost.

Connect iphone to a pc with a USB cable and use iTunes app or Apple Devices app to backup to pc FREE of charge.

Obviously, you need adequate spare space on pc to hold the backup.

Slightly annoyingly, you can only backup to C drive directly, but you can "cheat" by setting up a junction link to redirect the backup to another drive. Once setup, it is always remembered.
Note: you cannot just copy the backup to another drive as the restore does not work on that case. Restore works fine with a junction link.


If you need to backup different iphones, it handles it automatically but make sure iphones have a different name.


Note: the first time you backup, it takes a while (say 1-2 minutes per GB), but if you made some changes and rebacked up to pc, it adds/subtracts the differences to the first backup and this is quick.

It's a bit like doing a full pc image backup followed by an incremental backup.
Note: you cannot wind the backup to earlier backup though as the incremental data is always merged with the full data.

cereberus said:

You do not need to backup to Icloud at a cost.

Connect iphone to a pc with a USB cable and use iTunes app or Apple Devices app to backup to pc FREE of charge.

Obviously, you need adequate spare space on pc to hold the backup.

Slightly annoyingly, you can only backup to C drive directly, but you can "cheat" by setting up a junction link to redirect the backup to another drive. Once setup, it is always remembered.
Note: you cannot just copy the backup to another drive as the restore does not work on that case. Restore works fine with a junction link.

https://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/1dis9kq/change_the_directory_to_backup_your_iphone_on

If you need to backup different iphones, it handles it automatically but make sure iphones have a different name.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7715933?sortBy=rank

Note: the first time you backup, it takes a while (say 1-2 minutes per GB), but if you made some changes and rebacked up to pc, it adds/subtracts the differences to the first backup and this is quick.

It's a bit like doing a full pc image backup followed by an incremental backup.
Note: you cannot wind the backup to earlier backup though as the incremental data is always merged with the full data.

Click to expand...

If I have 70gb of data to backup on iPhone 13 mini and say 30gb of data to backup on iPhone SE 1st generation, how long would that take doing it this way? Not very long then based on your numbers?


So when I do this, both of those backups will be saved separately? So I can't mix it?


I'm concerned I might have malware or virus on my iphones. The reason is because I have clicked on ads and comments like on YouTube and some sites possibly. I am more concerned with the older iphone SE 1st generation as it no longer does updates. If that is the case, is there concern? I do not want to risk malware on my windows laptop which is why I'm a bit hesitant on this.


So this is better than paying for 200gb of iCloud then?


Is it possible to get a trial of it or not? But iCloud is safer right since well it uploads and saves to the cloud and it doesn't affect windows laptop?

Agree with Cereberus. Back up to pc using Apple Devices program. Backup to iCloud is slow, as is restore, and can cost you. I don't think it is safer than backup to pc. If you have anything syncing or backing up to iCloud from your phones you have to stop those processes and delete the data on iCloud if you think it is corrupted because it will sync with your restored iphones afterwards if it is allowed to.

As long as the phones have different (Iphone name) under Settings->Account->(Iphone name)->Device Info it saves the data in different files on the pc with (Iphone name) and date.

I had a corrupted iPhone this past week (I think because of a bug in Meta AI, but don't really know) and had to go through the factory reset and restore process with a backup on laptop i had made a few days earlier.

I don't know what to do about viruses in the backup, or if there are any programs to check for them on your iphone. I looked but didn't find any that I thought could help me. When you factory reset everything is new again and no viruses will survive that but if there is one on your phone and goes into the backup i would guess it would persist. I don't think a virus on your phone could infect your pc but that's just a guess. The antivirus program in windows on your pc probably would catch it if the virus were a threat to the pc.

Be sure you have the security info you need and a device to confirm it for apple when you do a factory reset. I had to use my ipad when they asked me to confirm on another device. I don't know if it can be done without another apple device. This is a safeguard against re-use of a stolen iphone.

Time to back up depends on cable, usb port, pc speed, and drive speed. My iPhone 16pro takes about 20-30 minutes (i do other things on the computer while it runs and never really timed how long it takes) to back up about 60gb with 32gb ram, usb c, ssd with tons of free space, on the laptop. Restoring the backup to the phone from the computer on the same system takes a lot longer. My recent experience getting the reset to factory took several hours because of the corrupted iphone but the restore of backup also took several hours. It didn't look like it was working but i left it overnight and it was restored when i woke up in the morning. Your iphone being a prior generation would i bet be even slower to restore.

Before you start you might want to read about resetting and restoring a corrupted iphone. It could happen. restoring Iphone backup after semi bricking phone.

Maleware on iphone will not affect PC as IOS is fundamentally incompatible with Windows in.e. an infected executable in Windows cannot run on IOS or vice versa.

Getting malware on an iPhone is pretty difficult anyway. I would be wary of anything that says you have serious malware - probably just a common scam to make you buy unnecessary clean up tools. Although I have an iPhone for expediency rather than desire, I admit I would be gobsmacked f I got any serious malware.

"(Malware) on iphone will not affect PC as IOS is fundamentally incompatible with Windows in.e. an infected executable in Windows cannot run on IOS or vice versa."

Click to expand...

i was thinking maybe a pdf or google document might be able to infect both. But it would have to be pretty sophisticated to affect both operating systems.