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iPhone 13 Looking for best way to migrate from old iphone to new iphone

mrgreeneyes

mrgreeneyes

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 7, 2007
844
54
Gatineau,Canada
I just got a new iphone 13
My old phone is a iphone se

What is the best way to simply move over all my data and settings?

The last time i upgraded phones i just backed up to icloud and on the new phone just did a restore from backup. But i am wondering if the transfer feature would be good? Or faster?
 
You can do iPhone > iPhone or iPhone > Mac > iPhone. Doing the later creates a read-only backup of your iPhone.

I do the backup every 2 years.

When I was space contraned I restore everything but videos & photos of the last 2 years as they make up the bulk of what I have on my phone.

When Apple bumped up the base storage from 16GB to 64GB I failed to realize this. When I moved from 64GB to 128GB I did a fully restore with all my original data.

By 2023 I hope base storage for the iPhone Pro Max or higher-end goes to 256GB.
 
FWIW, I have done the Direct Transfer method with two of my iPhones, two of my wife's iPhones, two iPads, and helped several seniors do the same thing. Not a one of us experienced any problems.
 
The direct transfer worked the last time I used it. If I remember right it wasn’t very fast though so don’t start it if you have to go somewhere. I’m not sure if there’s an advantage though over just using iCloud back up and restore. Perhaps if your Internet is really slow it might be better. They say it transfers passwords over but I’m pretty sure even with iCloud back up my passwords transferred except with banking apps which is exactly what happened with the direct transfer. It wasn’t bad but it didn’t seem like it was better.

Once you do the transfer make sure everything is on the new phone before you sent in the old one if you’re planning to do that.

My 2FA apps didn’t transfer over so make sure to get them setup on the new phone. The apps transferred over but they needed to be set up again. It would be inconvenient if you tried to login to something a week later then realized your 2FA app isn’t working and your old phone has been wiped.
 
As most have mentioned, the direct transfer feature works well. Have used it on my iPads, macs and iphone over the last 2-3 years with no hiccups.
 
I used to always restore from backup but the transfer has worked flawlessly last few times I did. I'm on the iPhone Upgrade Program so I change every year.
 
russell_314 said:
I’m not sure if there’s an advantage though over just using iCloud back up and restore.
Click to expand...
I have read that you increase your chances of a "seamless" backup if, when you backup your phone to your Mac, you encrypt that backup. I have not migrated to a new iPhone this way yet, but I will try it next time. I guess if I connect the iPhone to my iMac, find the iPhone in the Finder Sidebar and select it, I will be offered the option to [Restore from Backup] and as that backup is an encrypted one, I would stand the best chance of getting everything from the old iPhone onto the new one. Any opinions on that?
 
That's the option I chose to go from my latest iPhone and worked fine. I just wish I didn't have to re-log in to so many apps again for security. Using Face ID, you tend to forget log in info.
 
caranddriver said:
That's the option I chose to go from my latest iPhone and worked fine. I just wish I didn't have to re-log in to so many apps again for security. Using Face ID, you tend to forget log in info.
Click to expand...
Get yourself a good password manager.
 
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