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bodonnell202

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jan 5, 2016
2,579
3,415
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
So this one is a little weird. My grandmother has a first gen iPad mini which we had loaded with a few games and a bunch of photos for her. She doesn’t have the internet and I believe it is still running iOS 7. My Aunt recently bought her an iPad 9 and my Dad called me yesterday and asked how to transfer everything over (note, she really only cares about the photos, the apps don’t matter). Can we just do an iCloud backup of the old iPad and setup her new iPad using the backup. This is how I typically setup a new device these days but I didn’t know if it would work with such an old version of iOS (I feel like I was still using iTunes backups in the iOS 7 days). Perhaps I should just backup the photos and setup the iPad as new and then download them onto the new iPad?
 

TorbenIbsen

macrumors regular
Feb 22, 2021
176
147
Why not just try the backup of the old and restore to the new. - If it works, it works.

If not, I would see if synchronizing photos to iCloud works. It probably will. Then I would activate "using iCloud" on the new iPad in settings for Apple Photos. Then the photos will synchronize down to the new iPad. This process will take time. Hours/days depending on how many photos. On the new iPad all photos will be "analyzed" by Apple Photos. This also takes quite some time. But after that grandma can use the search function for even parts of a motive in the photos.
 

bodonnell202

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jan 5, 2016
2,579
3,415
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Why not just try the backup of the old and restore to the new. - If it works, it works.

If not, I would see if synchronizing photos to iCloud works. It probably will. Then I would activate "using iCloud" on the new iPad in settings for Apple Photos. Then the photos will synchronize down to the new iPad. This process will take time. Hours/days depending on how many photos. On the new iPad all photos will be "analyzed" by Apple Photos. This also takes quite some time. But after that grandma can use the search function for even parts of a motive in the photos.
Yep, in looking I'm not seeing much info out there on how/if a backup and restore would work in this case, so it looks like it is going to have to be trial and error here. I'll just tell my Dad to bring the iPads with him when they come up this weekend as it might be too much to talk him through!
 
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