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metsjetsfan

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 2, 2011
1,407
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Does anyone know exactly what data gets backed up for your iOS device when it goes to icloud?

Assuming it backs everything and just the pointers to apps and media that you had on your device.

Anyone know the size it takes up out of your icloud storage? (Approx of course, but assume 32GB ip)

Sorry if already discussed, link would be good too.
 
Does anyone know exactly what data gets backed up for your iOS device when it goes to icloud?

Assuming it backs everything and just the pointers to apps and media that you had on your device.

Anyone know the size it takes up out of your icloud storage?

Sorry if already discussed, link would be good too.

Open settings > iCloud > Backup & Storage > Manage Storage

Click on your device, and it will break down exactly what is being backed up.
On top of that list, your iCloud synced contacts, calendars, email, photo stream, and iTunes purchases (these don't count towards your available space).
 
As far as what information for each app, depends on the developer. It's basically just a shared folder. They can out whatever app data they want in their (from their own app) and I'm sure preferences etc go in on pretty much all of them.
 
thanks can you backup to icloud -and- your mac? imagine they may get out of sync at some point?
 
Reading through the developer docs, it seems that developers have a number of temporary and permanent directories that they can keep stuff in.

They're encouraged to keep stuff that can be re-downloaded in temporary directories which are not backed up to iCloud.

Take iTunes as an example. iTunes would back up your preferences, settings etc. to iCloud, but it wouldn't back up your music, because it's assumed that there's another backup of that elsewhere (on your computer).

As another poster said, you can drill down into the iCloud settings and see exactly how much data is backed up for every app.

On my iPhone I've chosen to back everything up, and that's taking 750MB.

On my iPad, my photos were going to be 500MB and my movies (which I keep in GoodReader) were going to be 6.5GB. Since I have backups of both of these on my Mac, I didn't want them in iCloud so I deselected them. All my other apps now back up in just 650MB.

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thanks can you backup to icloud -and- your mac? imagine they may get out of sync at some point?

Yes, in iTunes you can right click to get a drop-down and manually select a backup.

It may be easier and quicker restoring from this backup over USB if you want to migrate to another phone in the future.

These backups will get out of sync unless you regularly make a manual backup on your Mac - but that's your choice. The iCloud backup should be very up to date, and the Mac backup kind of a 'backup backup'!
 
Backups. iCloud or computer?

Do you back up your devices to the iCloud, or your computer and why? Trying to decide if I want all my content on the cloud or local computer.
 
Both here as well. I first created a backup in itunes, then checked the cloud back up option in itunes.
 
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