My iPhone 5 backup has 55k+ files, why?

[oliversl]

Hi,
I have an iPhone 5 with iOS 9 and when doing a local encrypted backup using iTunes, the backup folder have more than 55k files in it.

Its a 32gb iPhone with only 1000+ photos, and 200+ apps, no music or other big file count.

Is this normal? What can I do? The backup takes forever to finish because of this.

Many thanks
Oliver

 

[iThingsGurl]

It is normal. Those are system files and metadata files so that if you ever use the backup, your phone restores to exactly the state it was in, with all its settings, at the time of backup. Since this is an encrypted backup, additional data like passwords are also backed up.

 

[oliversl]

Tks, I checked with another iPhone backups and only mine has that many files.

 

[iThingsGurl]

Tks, I checked with another iPhone backups and only mine has that many files.

Was that other backup encrypted too?

Here's how my 10GB of iPhone backup looks like (and I have 15 apps installed in addition to stock apps):

 

[oliversl]

Thats a lots of files too. Yes, all others were encrypted too. I'm thinking that the longer you have used the iPhone, the more files the backup has.

 

[iThingsGurl]

I'm thinking that the longer you have used the iPhone, the more files the backup has.

And the number of apps installed. Ever. Some apps can have up to 100 system files attributed to them.