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Other Setting up new iPhone

T

thommo14

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 3, 2017
33
4
Hi

I’m about to upgrade to a new iPhone and am looking for advice on how to set up the new phone.

Should I restore my old iPhone’s backed up data to the new iPhone, or should I just start from scratch?

I ask because of a thread I read a while ago in which a user had a bad experience restoring his backed up data to his new phone (sluggish performance is what I remember as his main complaint). Several people chimed in to agree with him.

What do you guys do? Would be interested in your experiences.

Thanks.
 
My current 'profile' came from an iPhone 3GS in late 2011. It's been restored to an iPhone 5, a 6+ and my current 6s+. Over the years that same 'profile' has forked to an iPhone 4s from a 2014 backup, an iPad Air 2, a 6th Gen iPad and an iPhone 4.

In all cases, I've been jailbroken as well. So JB data such as tweak preferences and repo data have carried along.

I've never had an issue.

But I am religious in how I restore from backup and what I do and do not allow on my devices.

So, whatever you want to take from that go ahead.

Currently have a 5 on 10.3.3, iPhone 4 on iOS 7.1.2, a 4s on 6.1.3 and an iPad 6th Gen on iOS 12. My primary phone is still on 9.0.2. All using their own variations of this old 'profile'.
 
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I always restore from an old backup. Been doing it since the 3G. More than 10 phones later the Max has no problems at all. I always clean up the old one (remove old apps, messages, pics etc.) before making an encrypted iTunes backup. The encrypted backup will restore all keys, passwords etc. Then restore the backup to the new phone. Never an issue.
 
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You can always erase and set it up as a new phone later if the restore from backup is glitchy.

I have nearly always restored new phones from backup as well, but with the iPhone 6+ I set it up as new after a few weeks. I can't recall what problem decided to me to that, but it was the right thing as the problem went away.
 
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Count me in on never having set up as new. My phone has always performed above my expectations (the one exception being when I upgraded to 12.1.2) and I’ve always used backups.

That said, it’s a lot easier to set up as new these days as a good chunk of apps are storing data in the cloud and you get everything back as soon as you log in.
 
Going to restore from backup first and see how that goes.​

Thanks for your input. It's always interesting to see how other people work.
 
I have tried both over the years and never encountered a problem one way or the other.
 
old phone in left hand, new phone in right hand.

manually mirror the phones, go through every single setting. takes about 3 hours but i end up with a cloned phone that is set up as new and every single setting is managed/copied over.
 
I usually do express setup. Put the new phone next to your current phone, the OS will recognize you have a new phone and will offer to set up the new phone in a matter of minutes (depending on connection speed).
 
Clean up old phone removing apps not used or wanted any longer and rearranging screens. Delete old messages that I don't need any longer. Encrypt an iTunes backup. Then restore from the backup. Never had an issue.
 
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I just had an issue for the first time ever using local encrypted backups. Here's my experience:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...o-restore-backup.1631639/page-2#post-27083099

Had a phone using 72GB of space and the backup was 147GB large for some reason and thus too big to use for my new phone. I backed up to iCloud instead and restored from there.

This worked very well, but I did have to sign back in to all accounts and services. Just went through the apps and did it, took about 30 min, but I've decided to do this going forward. It was a very straightforward process and save 100's of GB of space. Luckily all my files and apps use cloud for data, so I don't have to worry about losing docs or saved games or anything.
 
thommo14 said:
Hi

I’m about to upgrade to a new iPhone and am looking for advice on how to set up the new phone.

Should I restore my old iPhone’s backed up data to the new iPhone, or should I just start from scratch?

I ask because of a thread I read a while ago in which a user had a bad experience restoring his backed up data to his new phone (sluggish performance is what I remember as his main complaint). Several people chimed in to agree with him.

What do you guys do? Would be interested in your experiences.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I've been restoring from the backup of my previous phone since my 3Gs. I see no reason not to.
 
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