Backing up your iPhone or Android phone is a process that’s usually dumped into the same category as finally organising your passwords or actually sorting through your photos.
It’s understandable, it’s not exactly an exciting task and on the surface it sounds like something that probably takes a long time.
Well we have some good news because not only is backing up your iPhone incredibly quick and easy, but it also comes with some big benefits which are:
- You’ll never lose your photos if you drop your phone down the toilet.
- Your shiny new iPhone X can literally set itself up without you having to do a thing.
- All your downloaded music won’t be lost when you switch phones.
- Never lose your messages or WhatsApp messages if (again) you drop your phone down the toilet.
- You could actually increase the storage space on your iPhone.
Now we’ve cleared that up, here are some simple steps for backing up your entire iPhone.
What is iCloud?
Before we get started on the specifics it’s probably good to quickly explain where you’re going to be storing all this information.
Apple has a cloud-based ecosystem called iCloud. Think of it as a safe deposit box where a virtual clone of your phone and its entire contents are stored safely away from any puddles, toilet-based accidents or boxes filled with rice.
Turn On iCloud Backup
Whereas before you might backup your iPhone via iTunes, iCloud Backup allows your phone to do it wirelessly and in the background
Once turned on it will automatically backup everything on your phone when it’s plugged in and connected to a WiFi network. For the majority of us that’s when we go to bed, so it’ll just backup your phone while you’re asleep.
1. Settings - iCloud
2. iCloud - iCloud Backup
3. Make sure iCloud Backup is turned ON.
Turn on iCloud Photo Library
If you haven’t got this turned on we’d recommend you do it now. It will upload all your photos to iCloud effectively giving you a backup should you ever have your phone stolen or break it.
You’ll never have to worry about manually putting them onto your laptop and any edits you make on one device will be instantly pushed onto your other devices.
Apple gives you 5GB of free iCloud storage. This includes images, iMessages, notes, documents etc. If you’ve got more than 5GB of images then for 79p per month you can upgrade to 50GB. If you’re someone who takes a lot of photos this feels like a small price to pay.
You can do that by doing the following:
1. Settings - Photos and Camera
2. Photos and Camera - Turn iCloud Photo Library on
Optimise iCloud Photo Library
Now at this juncture you might find that you’ve used up or gone over the 5GB storage limit that iCloud gives you.
If you have there are two solutions, you can either pay a small fee per month to increase the amount of storage you have or you can optimise your photos, effectively reducing the amount of space they take up on your iPhone.
You can do this by going to:
1. Settings - Photos and Camera
2. Photos and Camera - Optimise iPhone Storage
Backup WhatsApp
So while WhatsApp is backed up to iCloud, you actually have to go in and make sure that it’s turned on and that it’s backing up your chats daily.
If you’re moving over to a new phone, make sure this is one of the last things you do so that when you do turn on your new phone it has the most up to date conversations you were having.
1. Open WhatsApp - Settings - Chats
2. Chats - Chats Backup
2. Chats - Back Up Now (also check and see how regularly Auto Backup is enabled).
You’re all set.
That’s all there is to it. Now your iPhone, photos, messages and apps are all backed up to the cloud.
If you’ve done all these steps, setting up your next phone in the future is going to be a piece of cake. You simply enter your iCloud login details, choose ‘Restore from iCloud Backup’ and your phone will do the rest.