Ultimate Guide How To Backup IPhone 6 And IPhone 6 Plus To Mac/PC

We keep a lot of data on our iPhones, which is why backup is extremely important. Apple gave us two options for backup, iCloud and Mac/PC. In this article, we will cover the topic: How to backup iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus to Mac/PC, in our next article, we will discuss the other method. Authorize your Mac/PC using the same Apple ID that you have used to download application in the App Store. Note: Apple ID can be authorized on 5 devices. If you have more than 5 devices, you can de-authorized one of it. Launch iTunes on the menu bar, and click Store — Authorize this Computer. Enter your Apple ID and wait until a popup message appears and tells you that the authorization was successful and the information of the amount of computers, which are able to be authorized by the same Apple ID. Launch the iTunes software on Mac/PC.

Plug your iPhone to your Mac/PC by using data cable of iPhone. Wait until the iPhone is detected by iTunes, tap “Trust” when the pop up message appears. On the Summary panel, click Backup Now. If there’s a question whether you want to transfer all applications that you have bought, Click Back Up Apps. Wait until the process is finished. Where is the back up files stored, When the process is finished, it means the iTunes software backed up everything from your iPhone: contents, settings, applications, etc. Where are the backup files stored, It’s stored in a specific folder. You can replace “username” with your user name that you have on your PC. This backup file by default cannot be opened or extracted. It can only be used for “restore from backup” to your iPhone. On iTunes, click your iPhone and on summary panel check the checkbox Encrypt iPhone Backup, then enter a new password for the encryption. If there’s a question whether you want to transfer all applications that you have bought, Click Back Up Apps. Wait until the process is finished and your iPhone has been backed up completely. By choosing Encrypt iPhone Backup, when we are going to restore from backup, we will be asked for the password first. The password is the one you have created on the encrypt backup file data before. It will make our backup file safer, and because you will be the only person that knows the password.

Apple really should have included the option to backup messages via FTP, HTTP, or even iTunes but after all these years they still haven’t implemented a straightforward way to do so. That is, they haven’t explicitly explained a way to do it nor have they made it a native feature, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. We’re going to use two methods. The first is only a few steps out of your regular routine. That is, we’re going to use an iTunes backup of your iPhone to extract the backed up text messages. To do this we’ll need a certain backup file, an online decrypting service, and just a few minutes of time. Our second method is a bit more restrictive but the result is a far better format. Read this guide to find out exactly how this is done. The first way to save text messages on your PC is by making an iTunes backup of your phone.

We can then use the backup to extract a file that contains the messages. This encrypted file can then be uploaded to an online service that decrypts and exports the messages. If you already have a recent phone backup stored on your computer, you can skip this section. For everyone else, you’ll need to plug your iPhone into your computer and open iTunes. There is a specific file in the iTunes backup folder that we need. Filename: A string of letters and numbers. Copy the filename found in the appropriate location. This set of characters is unique, so yours won’t look like this but it will be similar. If you have multiple folders here, select the most recent one to ensure you’re working with a recent backup. At this point, I find the best solution is to paste the above filename into the search box and then copy the resulting file to the Desktop. Now that the file is on the Desktop for easy access, open the iPhone SMS website. This is the tool that’s required to decrypt the file you just copied and then export the messages to a readable format.

Click “Choose File” and then browse and open the one you copied from the iTunes folder. Continue to step 4 to “Choose your timezone”. The next step asks what format you’d like the output in. Select one and then click “Submit” for the final step. I’ve chosen all three exported formats to see which is the best. I find the “MS Excel” format to work the best because you can then set up a filter for looking at just the received or sent messages and sort by date. The iTunes backup required an actual phone backup from within iTunes. If you hate using iTunes or don’t want to wait for a full backup to complete, then try Xilisoft iPhone SMS Backup. There is a catch, however: You can only backup five contacts’ messages. Anymore than this and the program will ignore them unless you purchase the full version. If you only need four or less, then this program will work great for you. Plug the iPhone in and wait for the initial screen to start. Xilisoft is loading the phone’s information at this point. When the above window disappears, click the “Messages” button the left of the screen and “Export Messages” at the bottom. A new prompt will show, asking how to export the conversations. I’ve chosen both of these options and found “Html File” to be the best solution. The results are much more organized than the iTunes backup method. Yes, there are other ways to backup your text messages but of all the programs we tried they were very limited in their freeware state. Although Xilisoft isn’t entirely freeware, it will backup all the messages of five contacts. The iTunes method is entirely free but the result isn’t as slick and clean as the latter.