Just thought I’d bump this post. I just had another person tell me about their iDevice backup woes once again.. I was able to recover some stuff thank goodness. But come one people, for your own sanity, backup your data…..
I’ve written previously about backing up and restoring your iDevice. I’d like to add a short update to that. Having recently dealt with a few people who have ‘lost’ their data (either just photos or all their settings) after updating to iOS 6. I thought I should re-iterate a few things.
First use iTunes to backup your device (including ‘synching purchases) and make SURE you back up to your computer (and then iCloud if you choose) regularly; I’d recommend at least once a week. Read my previous post on how to use Apple’s iTunes method for that.
Second. As I mentioned before, I HIGHLY recommend using a third party application to copy off all your data; photos, contacts, phone logs, messages etc..
My choice to do that is DiskAid. With this application you can copy off all your data AND remove/delete older data such as photos taking up space. You can also copy all your contacts off (they are exported to a vCard format) that will then let import them into other applications like Outlook or other contact management software! I am always amazed that people will spend hundreds of dollars on a device and not spend any money on backing that data up. Folks most of you will spend more on dinner for two that the cost of this application.
I just got done freeing up 4GB of data on a iDevice that would not update because of ‘not enough available space’. There were hundreds if not thousands of pictures on it. To selectively delete them individually would have taken a very long time. Using DiskAid we just copied the entire Camera Roll off to the PC and removed all of them from the device. By default this user has their pictures already uploading to Instagram too.
After freeing up that space we were successfully able to upgrade to the latest version of iOS. BAM dead simple. And now those pictures and files can be backed up from the computer to an external drive for REAL backup and peace of mind.
UPDATE: DiskAid is now iMazing and works even better! So glad to have access to my iDevice!! I can now do most of the ‘stuff’ Apple doesn’t want me to do – delete whole groups of photos, copy off my call and text logs and update my contacts as I see fit. Yay!
Have fun. Peace out.