Restoring from iCloud backup

[Budge912]

Hi all!

Desperately need some advice about the best way to do this... a friend has asked me to solve her iPhone issue in that she had an iPhone 5 but managed to smash the screen. However instead of just getting it fixed she decided to buy an iPhone 6, put her SIM card in it and start using that (without downloading her old iPhone back up on it so she had none of her contacts, photos etc on it). However she's now had her iPhone 5 screen fixed and wants to put all the contacts and photos from it on to her new iPhone 6 and have everything on one phone.

Problem is that she's been using her iPhone 6 for 6 months now so has new contacts and photos stored on it that she wants to keep as well as everything from her iPhone 5.

What's the best way for me to go about doing this?

Currently I've backed up both her iPhones to iCloud but still need to work out a way of syncing the contacts and photos. If I back up both to her phones to MacBook Air will that sync the contacts? Not sure about the photos. Other way I was thinking is to upload photos from her iPhone 6 to drop box and get her to write down new contacts to manually put in her phone once I've downloaded the iPhone 5 back up on it, but not sure how you then put the photos back on the phone and it seems a lot of effort.

Any suggestions of the best way to go about doing this would be very welcome!! ☺️

 

[Budge912]

Can anyone help??

Hi all!

Desperately need some advice about the best way to do this... a friend has asked me to solve her iPhone issue in that she had an iPhone 5 but managed to smash the screen. However instead of just getting it fixed she decided to buy an iPhone 6, put her SIM card in it and start using that (without downloading her old iPhone back up on it so she had none of her contacts, photos etc on it). However she's now had her iPhone 5 screen fixed and wants to put all the contacts and photos from it on to her new iPhone 6 and have everything on one phone.

Problem is that she's been using her iPhone 6 for 6 months now so has new contacts and photos stored on it that she wants to keep as well as everything from her iPhone 5.

What's the best way for me to go about doing this?

Currently I've backed up both her iPhones to iCloud but still need to work out a way of syncing the contacts and photos. If I back up both to her phones to MacBook Air will that sync the contacts? Not sure about the photos. Other way I was thinking is to upload photos from her iPhone 6 to drop box and get her to write down new contacts to manually put in her phone once I've downloaded the iPhone 5 back up on it, but not sure how you then put the photos back on the phone and it seems a lot of effort.

Any suggestions of the best way to go about doing this would be very welcome!! ☺️

 

[bkrbyndr]

Best way backup to (iTunes) computer don't forget to authorize the computer that will transfer all the programs and everything.. Once you are done put the new telephone to the computer and restore from backup everything will be back there!

 

[Ethos Evoss]

Why it is not possible restore iphone from icloud without using itunes ?

 

[Budge912]

Best way backup to (iTunes) computer don't forget to authorize the computer that will transfer all the programs and everything.. Once you are done put the new telephone to the computer and restore from backup everything will be back there!

Thanks but what about the new contacts from her phone? They'll be lost won't they? Or will it sync it??

 

[Cmd-Z]

Well first, contacts are not really in a device's backup ... the backup only contains information about favorites and recent contact history. Doesn't she sync her contacts with an email account such as iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo, etc? Getting the old contacts back would just be a matter of signing into that email account in Settings and turning on the Contacts feature.

If she is not syncing contacts with any email account, meaning that the contacts only live on the iPhone itself, then perhaps the contacts are part of the backup. In that case, loading the old backup would surely overwrite any new contacts she's created on the iPhone 6.

But aside from contacts, loading an old backup will erase everything that has transpired on her iPhone 6 since she's been using it -- all iMessages, Camera Roll, app data, etc. would all be replaced with whatever was on her 5. I don't recommend doing it. Find out exactly what she needs to recover from the iPhone 5, then try to make a plan to recover the information without loading the backup onto her iPhone 6.

If she truly only needs her contacts, first sort out where they are kept. If they're only on the iPhone, fix that first since that's a very risky way to operate. Start syncing her iPhone 6 contacts to some form of contact manager -- an email account is best but for the paranoid you can sync locally to Outlook. Note that having an iCloud account is not the same as having an iCloud email account -- you need the (free) email account to use iCloud Contacts. But she can use the email of her choice since most play nice with iOS (though ISP email can be tricky, and AOL is, well AOL ...)

Once you have the newer contacts syncing to a safe place then if she can get her iPhone 5 working on Wi-Fi at least, look for 3rd party apps that let you export contacts. You would then import the exported file to her new contact manager.

Hope that gets you started?

 

[Kiyomi1]

"If you have enabled iCloud backup on your iPhone, then you can restore your device to a previous backup. Keep in mind that this process completely erases all of your iPhone data and restores data from a previous point in time. Make sure that you have a recent iPhone backup to choose from by opening the Settings menu, choosing "iCloud," and selecting "Storage & Backup." Scroll to the bottom of the screen and read the "Last Backup" timestamp. To restore from this backup, select "General" in the Settings menu, select "Reset," then chose "Erase All Content and Settings." Once your iPhone restarts, select "Set up your device," and choose "Restore from a Backup." Sign into your iCloud account and choose the backup file with the desired timestamp."

 

[jr866gooner]

Re the contacts.. It might be possible to create two vcf files of both and then import each file by emailing it to her. You literally click on the attached vcf file and choose import contacts!