Backing up the iPhone, Switching to the Cloud

[Stocks]

Since my first iPhone, I have always used iTunes to sync it. This gave me a backup of the iPhone (and iPad as well) that I used to restore the new iPhones and iPads that I purchased. I always liked this, my new iPhone had all the apps, data, and settings as the old one it was replacing.

If possible, I would like to stop using iTunes if possible. I only use it to backup my iDevices so why not just use the Cloud for that?

I would still dump images to iPhoto, so I would rather not pay for storage space for those. I also don't care about backing up my music, and I would purchase it directly from the iPhone, so no need for iTunes for that.

Does that sound do-able? Can I set it up this way?

Just as a re-cap, I'd like to have my iPhone and iPad automatically backed up to the Cloud, minus pictures and music, so that I can fully restore them if needed. How can I do that?

Thank you in advanace for the help.

 

[bbrks]

Sign in to iCloud, activate backup and in iCloud settings you have an option what to backup....very simple

 

[Stocks]

Sign in to iCloud, activate backup and in iCloud settings you have an option what to backup....very simple

I'm not seeing settings anywhere.

From what I just read, it is going to automatically backup my photos, which is what I don't want since I have so many of them.

 

[aristobrat]

Just as a re-cap, I'd like to have my iPhone and iPad automatically backed up to the Cloud, minus pictures and music, so that I can fully restore them if needed. How can I do that?

Settings > iCloud > Storage > Manage Storage > (select the device) > Backup Options

You'll have the option to deselect Photo Library if you want.

It doesn't backup Music directly, so there's no option for you to select/deselect.

Anything on your phone that you got from the iTunes Store or App Store doesn't get directly backed up. So if you have 8GB of music from the iTunes Store and 3GB worth of Apps, instead of backing up all 11GB to iCloud, it simply backs up a reference of what you had. If you ever do an iCloud restore, it will just download all of your iTunes Store/App Store content from the stores again. If you have your own music that you sync over from iTunes, it's up to you to plug your phone back into iTunes on your computer and re-sync that on your own.

Regarding photos, it only backs up what's in your Camera Roll. I make it a point to point to plug my iPhone into my computer once or twice month and sync my Camera Roll to the computer, and then clear the Camera Roll out on the iPhone. I then have albums from my computer (in iPhoto/Aperture) that sync back to my phone. These photos don't get backed up with iCloud (because they're not in Camera Roll), so it's a good way to have photos on your phone without having to worry about them being needlessly backed-up. So on any day, I'll have between 50mb-500mb of new photos in my Camera Roll, which I do let get backed up in my iCloud backup.

 

[bbrks]

Settings/iCloud......

 

[Stocks]

Thanks aristobrat, that worked.

When I changed that setting it went from 4.5GB to .5GB. I'm glad I didn't fill the cloud with 4GB of pictures.

Altho I thought I had a LOT more than 4GB of pictures, when I look at my iPhoto library it's much larger than that.


EDIT:

Regarding photos, it only backs up what's in your Camera Roll. I make it a point to point to plug my iPhone into my computer once or twice month and sync my Camera Roll to the computer, and then clear the Camera Roll off of the iPhone. I then have albums from my computer (in iPhoto/Aperture) that sync back to my phone. These photos don't get backed up with iCloud (because they're not in Camera Roll), so it's a good way to have photos on your phone without having to worry about them being needlessly backed-up.

I'm just curious why you don't do like you said about and turn off the backup for photos?

 

[swordfish5736]

Thanks aristobrat, that worked.

When I changed that setting it went from 4.5GB to .5GB. I'm glad I didn't fill the cloud with 4GB of pictures.

Altho I thought I had a LOT more than 4GB of pictures, when I look at my iPhoto library it's much larger than that.


EDIT:



I'm just curious why you don't do like you said about and turn off the backup for photos?

I'd guess so he's got a backup of any photos that are taken before they get synced to iPhoto.

iCloud backup will occur whenever your device is connected to wifi and plugged in to power. The majority of the time you won't need it, but if you lose a device or something breaks then you've still got a backup of any photos you've yet to sync to iPhoto.

 

[Stocks]

I'd guess so he's got a backup of any photos that are taken before they get synced to iPhoto.

iCloud backup will occur whenever your device is connected to wifi and plugged in to power. The majority of the time you won't need it, but if you lose a device or something breaks then you've still got a backup of any photos you've yet to sync to iPhoto.

Gotcha, makes perfect sense now.