Download Backups From Icloud
Laquanda Gede
Is it okay to make a folder on iCloud for automatic Scrivener backups? I figure if the computer ever gets destroyed, it would be good to have backups in the cloud, unless there's some reason why that's a bad idea?
Upload the images to iCloud. And double the effort by backing up the same images somewhere else as well. The easiest is a small portable hard drive. A LaCie Rugged drive with 4 terabytes of storage costs around $150, or about $50 more than 1 year of 2 TB service from Apple.
After turning on iCloud Photos, turn on "Optimize Storage" in the Settings. Low resolution photos will AUTOMATICALLY be kept on your phone and the high-res files will AUTOMATICALLY be kept in the cloud. This will prevent your phone from running out of storage. Whenever you do something with the Apple Photos app and a higher-res file is needed, the high-res version will be downloaded AUTOMATICALLY. The only time you should delete a photo is if you never want to see it again. And 2TB of storage for all of those high-res files is $9.99 per month. 2TB is a lot of storage for iPhone photos.
Beyond simply storage, Apple, Google, and Adobe all have AI (Artificial Intelligence) features like facial and object recognition. Search for the word "dog" on any of those services and all of the photos you have taken with a dog will appear. And every month or so I get a slideshow with music from Apple made with photos from a special day or event. I don't tell it what to make, it just knows. For instance, it knows photos taken on December 25th are from Christmas and makes it for me, excluding photos with eyes closed, etc. Pretty amazing stuff.
That\u2019s the worst thing he could do. Because once they\u2019re uploaded to iCloud, the next time it scans his phone for an automatic backup, it will notice that the Costa Rica pix are gone and in turn delete them from the cloud backup as well.
As Apple puts it: \u201CAutomatically upload and safely store all your photos and videos in iCloud so you can browse, search and share from any of your devices.\u201D Notice the word backup doesn\u2019t appear there anywhere?
Remember the old Apple ad asking us to \u201CThink Different?\u201D It\u2019s the same thing when it comes to backup. Apple just does it differently. In Apple\u2019s world, you don\u2019t delete images off the phone, you just convert them to low-resolution copies, and download the high-resolution originals from iCloud.
We\u2019re all taking more photos and videos than ever before, in higher resolution, and the fact is, we outgrow our phone\u2019s storage all the time. All of us needs to pay more attention to backup strategies. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Dropbox and SmugMug have different plans (they all charge) that don\u2019t involve deleting your cloud photos if you\u2019ve gotten rid of them from your phone.
This isn\u2019t the proper or ideal way to back up photos, however. Nor is it a long-term solution: Apple will actually delete your files from its cloud 180 days after you turn off iCloud backup, so be aware of that.
Cleaning out iCloud Drive is easiest from a computer, although it can also be done on an iPhone or iPad. On a Mac, simply head to the iCloud Drive folder in Finder. Then you can sort files by size, type, or creation date and delete anything you no longer need.
Michael Graw is a freelance journalist and photographer based in Bellingham, Washington. His interests span a wide range from business technology to finance to creative media, with a focus on new technology and emerging trends. Michael's work has been published in TechRadar, Tom's Guide, Business Insider, Fast Company, Salon, and Harvard Business Review.
Just in case anyone else comes across this topic... My issue was that Other System Data was forever growing and taking up every little bit of space I had. Turns out for me it was the OneDrive app ....however under iPhone Storage apparently OneDrive was only using a few MB's?? Even when I went into the app it only showed a few MB's. I only have 9GB stored in OneDrive so not sure why it was taking up over 36GB on my device?? I had to use a third party app to check called iPhone Cleaner, did a quick scan and deleted the OneDrive app from my device ...I got my free space back!! =)
The setting that tells your phone to maintain automatic iCloud backups, as well as the button to Back Up Now are buried deep within the Settings app, one screen past the backup settings for individual apps.
By the way, if you see multiple backups of the same phone, take a look at how old each one is. You might have an older iPhone backup that you can delete to open up iCloud space. Once you're done purging this list, tap on the name of the device you're currently using.
Lower on the screen under Next Backup Size is a list where you can Choose Data to Back Up. This list will have apps and how much data each has to back up. The list goes from what takes up the most space to the least. If you just need a slightly smaller backup file, uncheck larger data items from the list if you don't mind whether or not they're backed up.
I realize that the idea of paying Apple more money on top of what we already spend on devices, accessories and AppleCare may not sit well. But if you lost your iPhone and were told you could download a backup of all of the data from your lost phone for just $36, you'd probably say yes. And that's how much the 200GB extra storage plan on iCloud costs for a year. (If you need more space than that, well, it does get a bit spendier.)
On your Mac, open a Finder window from the Dock. Next, select your device from the sidebar under Devices. Then on the right-hand side click on the General tab. Finally, click Back Up Now. Depending on how much data you have, this could take a while.
Click Summary and then scroll down to the Backup section, and under the Backup section click Back Up now. After some time, your computer will have a backup file of your iPhone. To double-check the file, go to the iTunes menu, select Edits, then Preferences and then choose the Devices tab. From there, you can see a list of any iPhone backups that you've made via iTunes.
If you back up iOS device(s) to iCloud, you'll soon hit problems if you try to stay under the 5GB storage limit. To reduce the amount of iCloud storage consumed by iCloud backups, you can back up your iOS device(s) to a Mac or PC and delete existing backups you may have created from iCloud.
Recent Macs can use iCloud to automatically sync and store contents of both the Desktop and the Downloads folder. Once these items are made available there, you can access them from any other Apple device, so long as you are logged in using the same Apple ID. You can also access those items online using a web browser.
Once signed in, you will be redirected to the iCloud homepage. Locate and click on the "Backup" icon or the "Settings" icon (presented by a gear) and select "iCloud Settings." This will take you to the iCloud settings page, where you can manage various iCloud features, including backups.
If you need to restore data from your iCloud backup, you can do so using iCloud.com. After selecting the backup you want to restore from, you will have the option to restore the entire backup or choose specific data categories, such as photos or contacts, to restore.
If you want to free up storage or remove old backups from your iCloud account, you can delete backups directly from iCloud.com. Simply select the backup you wish to delete, and within the backup details page, click on the "Delete" button. Confirm your choice, and the backup will be permanently removed from iCloud.
A friend had a problem with her iPhone and needed to reset it. Unfortunately she did the reset while connected to iTunes and the restore process kicked in. In my sleepy state, I told her to go ahead. She did, and restored the most recent local (iTunes) backup (from July last year - she doesn't back up often, as she has an Air which is pretty full). During setup on the phone, she was prompted to merge data with the iCloud copy, and did so. There was no "restore from iCloud" prompt.
Obviously I should have made sure she was disconnected from iTunes before she did the reset, or had her set it up as a new device and then restored from iCloud, but water under the bridge now. (Side question: could I have had her disconnect and then restart the phone again and avoid this whole process?)
The question is: was the "merge" that happened in this process a true merge, or a replace? Her passwords for Mail were wrong, since they were the old ones from the old backup. If she does the wipe data and restore from iCloud, will she get her old SMSes and calendar entries back? Or did the merge decide that the phone, despite it being "old" was right and therefore the SMSes, calendar entries, etc. were discarded?
As a recovery option, I have a 4-day-old iTunes backup here from /Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup, but she and the phone are 3000 miles away, and it's 8GB, so I can't easily restore it for her. I do have the option of encrypting it and mailing it on a data stick if the iCloud backup is now toast.
Should she try the wipe and restore from the cloud (after backing up locally), or should I just get the more-recent backup in the mail? My goal is to get everything (especially the SMSes) back to the most recent version possible.
Answering my own question: iCloud holds three separate backups, so the initial backup I took (or one that the phone took automatically over the last few days) should contain all the data we want to recover.
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