Now, you’re ready to hit the magic button to install the Public Beta. Of course, disasters are rare, but that will be of little consolation if it happens to you. Don't blindly tap install. Back-up your iOS data. You get 5 GB of space on iCloud for free. Use it. Ensure you’re on Wi-Fi, open the Settings app and select iCloud.
Turn on relevant options that aren’t already activated, to send important data (calendars, reminders, browser bookmarks, and so on) to the cloud. At that point, these are all safe, and can be retrieved elsewhere should iOS 11 fire your iPhone or iPad into the heart of the sun. If it turns out you need more storage, upgrade.
Now scroll down to and select Storage & Backup. Tap ‘Back Up Now’. You might have to enter your password, and then you’ll either get a progress bar indicating how long the back-up will take, or you’ll see a ‘Not Enough Storage’ warning. In the latter case, tap Manage Storage, select your device, and under Backup Options, deselect any items you can easily restore from elsewhere. Your iCloud back-up will include app data, Camera Roll content, iTunes Store purchases, contacts and messages, notes and calendars, network and email account passwords, preferences, and Safari autofill data.
It will also take ages, so don’t leave this until the last minute. Yes, we know: iTunes is horrible. Tough — deal with it. Hold your nose, launch the app, select your device and click the Summary tab. Under Backups, click Back Up Now. This will back up your iOS device’s data to your PC or Mac, and you can recover from this back-up in the event of a disaster.
Again, this will take ages if you've not recently backed-up, and so do it sooner rather than later. Photos are often records of precious memories (or precious drunken selfies) and losing them can be painful. Alternatively, you can also use iCloud Photo Library, which saves everything to the cloud, but will almost certainly require you to upgrade your iCloud storage plans.
Uploading everything, again, will take ages, too. Next, plug your device into your computer. If you’re using a Mac, use (depending on your set-up) Photos, iPhoto, Image Capture or Aperture to make copies of your photos. If you’re using a PC, select your device from the Portable Devices section, right-click, select “Import pictures and videos”, and follow the wizard. You will, however, lose an app’s data on deletion, which will be gone for good unless it has iCloud support.
So be mindful of removing apps and games you’ve invested loads of hours in, if there’s still the possibility of an update later. Previously, the free iExplorer for Mac and Windows gave you access to each app’s Documents and Library folders, enabling you to back-up things like game progress and sideload it back later.
Explorer is still useful, though. A few apps still provide access to their data, and you can use iExplorer to extract data from any app by scouring local iTunes back-ups — although there’s currently no way to reinstate it. Note also that iTunes doesn’t back-up music, and iCloud only holds content you’ve bought from Apple.
Explorer can be a quick way of getting music off of your device via ‘Media Library’, again in the sidebar. If you’ve local back-ups taken using iTunes, they will be searchable. You’ll need to update iTunes (spit) to continue periodically backing up to your computer, which we assume you’re also backing up, right, Stern look at camera.
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