iPhone 12 Backup and setup iPhone as new

[gta1216]

A friend of mine have been using an iPhone 12 for several months, but she have to re-setup her phone as new. She always setup her new iPhone with either iTunes or iPhone to iPhone setup. I guess there was an error when setting it up the recent time and its causing her a lot of issues.

She doesn't use iCloud to backup anything. Since she will have to setup her phone as brand new from scratch, she will not have any of her stuff transferred. She will backup everything to her iTunes before she set it up as a brand new phone from scratch. She wants to know if there's any way to be able to get the following items back.

• Contacts
• Settings (such as wallpaper, placement of app icons, keyboards, language... basically all settings)
• Text messages
• iMessages
• Photos / videos
• Passwords to various websites / apps
• Notes
• Calendars including the events in each calendar

 

[chrfr]

A friend of mine have been using an iPhone 12 for several months, but she have to re-setup her phone as new. She always setup her new iPhone with either iTunes or iPhone to iPhone setup. I guess there was an error when setting it up the recent time and its causing her a lot of issues.

She doesn't use iCloud to backup anything. Since she will have to setup her phone as brand new from scratch, she will not have any of her stuff transferred. She will backup everything to her iTunes before she set it up as a brand new phone from scratch. She wants to know if there's any way to be able to get the following items back.

• Contacts
• Settings (such as wallpaper, placement of app icons, keyboards, language... basically all settings)
• Text messages
• iMessages
• Photos / videos
• Passwords to various websites / apps
• Notes
• Calendars including the events in each calendar

Apple provides a thorough document about what's in a backup: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204136

 

[BrianBaughn]

You don't give much detail on the problems that led to the "reset as new". If the problems are in the backup then restoring from the backup will bring the problems back.

 

[now i see it]

The following will sync over if they are set up in iCloud (not iCloud backup. That's different).
If they aren't linked to iCloud, nothing will copy over.

• Contacts
• Text messages
• iMessages
• Photos
• Passwords to various websites / apps
• Notes
• Calendars including the events in each calendar

 

[gta1216]

I don't know what problems she's having with her phone, but I think she spoke to Apple tech support and was told her problem may have been caused when she was setting up her phone with iPhone to iPhone setup. I don't think she's planning to backup her phone on iTunes and set it up with the backup copy. I think she will setup as new, but wants to be able to recover the items I mentioned in my earlier post. The least important for her would be the passwords.

 

[chrfr]

I don't know what problems she's having with her phone, but I think she spoke to Apple tech support and was told her problem may have been caused when she was setting up her phone with iPhone to iPhone setup. I don't think she's planning to backup her phone on iTunes and set it up with the backup copy. I think she will setup as new, but wants to be able to recover the items I mentioned in my earlier post. The least important for her would be the passwords.

You can't pick and choose what you restore from a backup. It sounds like this person should be using iCloud to sync.

 

[eyoungren]

In this day and time, with the prolification of cloud services, I think it unwise to store all your eggs in one basket. Store them in more than one or all of them in more than one. You shouldn't be beholden to one service for everything and if facing a restore or transfer you shouldn't have the thought somewhere in your mind that 'if this fails, I'm screwed!"

iCloud is great, so are backups on a Mac or PC. But relying solely on those things is a recipe for…the subject of this thread.

I know none of that is offering you a solution, but unless your friend had a backup somewhere it's not likely the data is recoverable.