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TL24

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 20, 2011
1,402
1,262
I recently purchased a brand spanking new iPhone 5 (32gb) and instead of fully restoring everything from my previous 4S back up I only want to restore the contacts and sms only - is that possible?:confused:
 

TL24

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 20, 2011
1,402
1,262
You can restore the contacts only.
To get all the texts you will need to get it all from restoring from backup.
Sucks that you cant pick and choose in an all or nothing deal.

How do I only restore the contacts? iTunes will not allow me to specifically select what I want to restore :confused:
 

Bluesky2011

macrumors member
Dec 25, 2012
75
16
London
How do I only restore the contacts? iTunes will not allow me to specifically select what I want to restore :confused:

you can use icloud to restore your contact. Just enable the contact feature in icloud setting. Then sign in that icloud account in your new iphone. It's only for contact. Sms can't.
 

Andy Ftw

macrumors regular
Mar 12, 2011
159
2
How do I only restore the contacts? iTunes will not allow me to specifically select what I want to restore :confused:

You can use iBackUpBot, I've tried and test it on iOS 6 on my iPhone 4, so I can't guarantee anything for an iPhone 5 but I would be fairly sure it would work.

First restore your iPhone 5 from backup so it has all your contacts and texts which you want to save on your phone (among the useless extra stuff you don't want). Then back up your phone and open iBackUpBot and locate your most recent backup. Find sms.db & addressbook.db and select then and export them to your desktop (along with the info which it asks, required to restore into a backup).

Then restore your phone to new and do not restore from backup. Once it's back to factory settings, back up your phone (obviously this will backup practically nothing as you have just restored it). Then open iBackUpBot and locate the clean backup you just created. Then choose "import" and select the sms.db and the addressbook.db and import them into your backup. Once this is done, go to iTunes and choose restore from backup and select this backup. This should keep everything clean, and just put the sms/addressbook back onto your phone, aka your messages and contacts :)
 

TL24

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 20, 2011
1,402
1,262
You can use iBackUpBot, I've tried and test it on iOS 6 on my iPhone 4, so I can't guarantee anything for an iPhone 5 but I would be fairly sure it would work.

First restore your iPhone 5 from backup so it has all your contacts and texts which you want to save on your phone (among the useless extra stuff you don't want). Then back up your phone and open iBackUpBot and locate your most recent backup. Find sms.db & addressbook.db and select then and export them to your desktop (along with the info which it asks, required to restore into a backup).

Then restore your phone to new and do not restore from backup. Once it's back to factory settings, back up your phone (obviously this will backup practically nothing as you have just restored it). Then open iBackUpBot and locate the clean backup you just created. Then choose "import" and select the sms.db and the addressbook.db and import them into your backup. Once this is done, go to iTunes and choose restore from backup and select this backup. This should keep everything clean, and just put the sms/addressbook back onto your phone, aka your messages and contacts :)

Thanks bud! I'll try that right now!
 

leibelly

macrumors newbie
May 3, 2013
5
0
help

You can use iBackUpBot, I've tried and test it on iOS 6 on my iPhone 4, so I can't guarantee anything for an iPhone 5 but I would be fairly sure it would work.

First restore your iPhone 5 from backup so it has all your contacts and texts which you want to save on your phone (among the useless extra stuff you don't want). Then back up your phone and open iBackUpBot and locate your most recent backup. Find sms.db & addressbook.db and select then and export them to your desktop (along with the info which it asks, required to restore into a backup).

Then restore your phone to new and do not restore from backup. Once it's back to factory settings, back up your phone (obviously this will backup practically nothing as you have just restored it). Then open iBackUpBot and locate the clean backup you just created. Then choose "import" and select the sms.db and the addressbook.db and import them into your backup. Once this is done, go to iTunes and choose restore from backup and select this backup. This should keep everything clean, and just put the sms/addressbook back onto your phone, aka your messages and contacts :)

Hi! this is exactly what I need to do, but I am not very savy with this stuff. Would you be willing to walk me through this? I have an iPhone 4s that I need to wipe fresh but would like to restore only my contacts and text messages. I have ibotbackup, but not sure how to do this! Your help would be appreciated, thanks for your time.
Kelsey
 

Mr Kram

macrumors 68020
Oct 1, 2008
2,388
1,237
just restore everything and then unsync everything you don't want.
 

viperGTS

macrumors 68000
Nov 15, 2010
1,560
941
just restore everything and then unsync everything you don't want.

The problem with this is that you can't selectively restore certain data, like settings, SMS's, and app data. The iBackupBot method is so much better for selective restoration purposes.
 

charlituna

macrumors G3
Jun 11, 2008
9,636
816
Los Angeles, CA
you can use icloud to restore your contact. Just enable the contact feature in icloud setting. Then sign in that icloud account in your new iphone. It's only for contact. Sms can't.

That's not totally true. You can do an iCloud backup which does include SMS. If you are going to go thorough some big process of restoring the phone, backing it up again etc to use some third party why not just restore it, turn on iCloud and make sure contacts are syncing. Ditch all your apps, your camera roll, hit all the reset settings stuff and so in until nothing is left but contacts, messages and then run an iCloud backup. Do a DFU to really wipe it clean and restore from iCloud.

Probably about as much work.
 

leibelly

macrumors newbie
May 3, 2013
5
0
help

The problem with this is that you can't selectively restore certain data, like settings, SMS's, and app data. The iBackupBot method is so much better for selective restoration purposes.

I understand I was just hoping someone could walk me through the process step by step.:(
 

leibelly

macrumors newbie
May 3, 2013
5
0
help

That's not totally true. You can do an iCloud backup which does include SMS. If you are going to go thorough some big process of restoring the phone, backing it up again etc to use some third party why not just restore it, turn on iCloud and make sure contacts are syncing. Ditch all your apps, your camera roll, hit all the reset settings stuff and so in until nothing is left but contacts, messages and then run an iCloud backup. Do a DFU to really wipe it clean and restore from iCloud.

Probably about as much work.

How do I do this? thanks
 

sineelay

macrumors newbie
Apr 8, 2014
1
0
I recently got a iphone 5 and from the excitement of seeing Obama in cape town, took pictures of his speech and even recorded my friends shaking his hand and have brief conversations. Now when i connected the new phone into my mac, itunes requested a restore from old backup. So agreed, not knowing that all the new photos / movies of the US president would be deleted!!!

Can i receive them or not. and why doesn't Apple provide such information to users for new restorations?
Please help!
 

towtoe

macrumors newbie
Aug 11, 2014
1
0
Before a sync or restore, I believe that iTunes will create a backup of your phone's contents (unless you manually cancel this backup). The backup will contain the photos and messages that were on the phone.
 

bumhaap

macrumors newbie
Feb 2, 2015
1
0
It is a pity that if you choose to restore from iTunes, you will recover the entire data of your iTunes, however, what to do if you want to recover contacts or messages only, this is also a problem that haunts me recently.
 

ZaCharee00

macrumors newbie
May 7, 2015
1
0
Actually, when we delete a contact from iPhone, the contact doesn't get deleted really, it still stay somewhere on our phone but is difficultly detected by our eyes. It's because the deleted data is technically marked for deletion by the operating system and hidden so that they become invisible to us.
Do you know how to restore contacts on iphone? As is known to us, when we have no previous backup to restore, the only way to retrieve deleted contacts on iPhone is by using a third-party tool.
 
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Mackerker

macrumors newbie
May 21, 2015
2
0
recover text messages without iPhone

Not careful to deleted SMS messages from iPhone,or after jailbreak iPhone/Update iPhone to more high iOS system,and cause their Text messages lost,Lost SMS after factory reset on the iPhone.However,how to recover deleted text messages from iPhone?Are there any way to restore deleted SMS Message from iPhone?

You can retrieve deleted text messages on iPhone without using the device with FonePaw iPhone Data Recovery, if you have made a backup before.

Here is the way you can follow to restore text messages iPhone

1. Connect the iPhone to the computer with a USB cable.
2. Open iTunes.
3. If you have a new or erased iPhone, iTunes will prompt you to restore from backup.
4. Otherwise, Control-click on your iPhone under DEVICES in the left menu.
5. Select Restore From Backup...
6. Choose the backup you wish to sync and click the Restore button.
 
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