Are you upgrading to the iPhone 6 or thinking about getting the new iPhone 6s after Apple’s September announcement? If so, you’ll want to think about iCloud backup and how to restore backup from iCloud when you visit your local AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, or T-Mobile.
In the following how-to, we’ll show you how to restore backup from iCloud – whether you restore on your current iPhone 6 or are upgrading to the iPhone 6 from an iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, or iPhone 5s.
How to restore backup from iCloud when transferring data from one iPhone to another
If you’re in the market for a new iPhone, then you may want to transfer your photos as well as notes (from the Notes app) and games downloaded on the old iPhone to the new iPhone. To do this, you’ll need to go to your settings on your old iPhone, scroll down to “iPhone” on the left side, then tap “backup” with the green square and white arrow icon. After this, move the button switch to the right until you see the right side turn green.
Before you restore backup to iCloud, however, you want to make sure that you backup all the content you want iCloud to restore on the new device. To manage your iCloud backup, go to “Settings,” then “iCloud,” then “Storage,” followed by “manage storage.” You’ll see how much content you’ve backed up on your device. If you want to backup more content to iCloud before transferring your data, you can go back to the “iCloud” section and select toggles on and off for the content you want to backup or abandon. You also want to make sure that you update to the latest iOS X.x update (in this case, 8.4) before you back up your content to iCloud.
After updating to the latest iOS update, and saving your content within the iCloud backup, you’ll want to restore your current device to factory settings. To do this, go to “Settings,” “General,” then “Reset,” and finally, “erase all content and settings.” This will allow you to reset your old iPhone and trade it in or sell it.
To restore your iCloud backup on your new iPhone, you’ll want to cut the iPhone on, then in the Setup Assistant, go to “Set up your device,” select the “restore from iCloud backup,” log in with your iCloud username and password, then go to “choose backup” and select the most recent backup of your content.
How to restore backup from iCloud on your current iPhone
If, for some reason, you’re experiencing a relatively high amount of app crashes, your Mail app is hung up and can’t seem to update your mail, or you’ve tried to delete and reinstall a problematic game app (and the problem still persists), you’ll likely want to reset your iPhone to factory settings, then restore backup from iCloud. To do this, you’ll want to go to “Settings,” “General,” “Reset,” then “erase all content and settings.” Once your iPhone resets, you’ll then be prompted with the Setup Assistant to program everything anew again. At the “Setup your device” page, select the “restore from iCloud backup” and then select the most recent iCloud backup.
Keep in mind that your new iPhone needs to be updated to the most recent iOS X.x update. If it isn’t (if your new iPhone is on iOS 8.3 while the old iPhone was on iOS 8.4, for example), you’ll need to do that before you can restore to iCloud backup on your new iPhone.