All Devices Restore texts only

[Glope]

Hi all

I was recently bought a new iPhone 11 Pro as an unexpected gift, and so havent had the wait for launch to thoroughly research this.

Previously with new phones, I have reluctantly restored completely from a backup but only for text messages that I don’t want to loose (father passed away a couple years ago).

I regularly backup to iCloud and keep my photos in Photos. I’d like to set up my new phone as ‘brand new’ as I’m concerned that any dirty old data or previous software bugs etc will be carried over - these backups have been going for 5+ years now!

It would be nice to treat as new and start a fresh, but retain texts only and sync my photos. I imagine this has been asked multiple times before but does anyone know if this is possible?

Thank you very much

 

[newellj]

It should be.

Set up your phone as new with your Apple ID (assuming it's the same one that you use for iCloud).

Go to Settings>your name/ID at the top of Settings>iCloud and turn on Photos and Messages.

Your messages and photos should sync to your new phone. The download may take some time.

 

[Chazzle]

Hi all

I was recently bought a new iPhone 11 Pro as an unexpected gift, and so havent had the wait for launch to thoroughly research this.

Previously with new phones, I have reluctantly restored completely from a backup but only for text messages that I don’t want to loose (father passed away a couple years ago).

I regularly backup to iCloud and keep my photos in Photos. I’d like to set up my new phone as ‘brand new’ as I’m concerned that any dirty old data or previous software bugs etc will be carried over - these backups have been going for 5+ years now!

It would be nice to treat as new and start a fresh, but retain texts only and sync my photos. I imagine this has been asked multiple times before but does anyone know if this is possible?

Thank you very much

You'll want to turn on iCloud Photos and toggle Messages on in your iCloud settings on your old phone first. Then you'll need to allow everything to sync with iCloud which depending on how many photos and texts you have, could take all day on power and wifi. Once everything has finished syncing with iCloud, you can get all your photos and texts on your new phone even after it's been setup as new without restoring a backup. This is typically how I setup a new phone.

 

[Glope]

Thank you both, I'm unboxing and setting up tonight