Selectively restoring items to an iPhone (from iTunes)

"Ash78, voting early and often" (ash78)
03/22/2016 at 15:40 • Filed to: None

So I backed up my 32GB iPhone before leaving my old job, and now I have my new phone in hand (16GB). I had no way of knowing or planning for a smaller phone, but most of all I had no idea that iTunes would not let me restore just SOME of my old profile — for example, I don’t need any photos, since they’re all backed up elsewhere. I’ve scoured the webz and even called Apple, and the consensus on restoring a phone is “all or nothing,” which seems like a pretty pathetic oversight from a company who normally thinks of everything. The Apple guy even recommended finding someone with a 32GB device, having them clear out their phone, and letting me temporarily "park" all my stuff there so I can delete what I don't need. I'm also looking into a program called iBackupBot with no success so far. Any ideas? Sorry I can't do paragraphs anymore, IE doesn't play nicely with Kinja.

DISCUSSION (23)

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > Ash78, voting early and often
03/22/2016 at 15:47

There might be a way to manually look through your backups. I’m not quite sure about that one though.

Sam > Ash78, voting early and often
03/22/2016 at 15:51

No idea, but there's no way it's going to be easy. How else would Apple incentivise getting the one with more storage capacity.

Ash78, voting early and often > Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap
03/22/2016 at 15:51

Yeah, that would make sense. But everywhere I look, it's dead ends. Surely somebody at Apple thought "Maybe their new device doesn't have the same capacity as the old one." That would actually be a logical thought, especially when the company is always pushing the newest phones on us (mostly 16GB). And charging $100 for another $16GB is highway robbery.

E92M3 > Ash78, voting early and often
03/22/2016 at 15:55

I think the assumption is that you’ll upgrade to one of their newer devices, and with more storage each time. 16gb, then 32gb, then 64, 128, and so on. It’s too bad you can’t browse the files in a file explorer like you can with Android. Everything must be done thru iTunes.

Ash78, voting early and often > Sam
03/22/2016 at 15:56

They already do that — by making the photos and videos bigger all the time, so eventually you'll have almost no storage "headroom" left and have to dump your photo roll every week or two (ask me how I know...)

Ash78, voting early and often > E92M3
03/22/2016 at 16:01

I know...my life with iPhone has been so simple until now. But buying a newer device with equivalent storage almost doesn't make business sense, since the new 16GB devices are roughly the same price as the last-gen 32-64GB devices. Most people shop by price point.

Galileo Humpkins (aka MC Clap Yo Handz) > Ash78, voting early and often
03/22/2016 at 16:01

It is, or used to be, possible

Using iTunes, start the process of restoring your 32GB iOS backup to the new phone.

iTunes will eventually show a message letting you know the backup is too big to restore.

At this point, you should be able to select items that you do not want on the new phone from the sidebar and subsequent sync options (used to be tabs, not sure which iTunes you have).

Click ‘Sync’ button after you’ve made your selections and everything complete.

Also haven’t done this in a while so I’m not sure if it still works and works the same way. This is one of those weird things that Apple hides/hid in their workings because they assume people won’t run into this often.

tpw_rules > Ash78, voting early and often
03/22/2016 at 16:06

The backup is fairly small. It’s just also trying to put back all your music and apps which won’t fit and is presumably synced in your iTunes library. You can choose what you want in the middle of the restore process like shown here .

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > Ash78, voting early and often
03/22/2016 at 16:12

I’ve been able to find my backups folder by going through and searching through Finder but.... You have to type in the exact folder location. And then none of the files make any sense to someone that isn’t an expert in any of this.

Ash78, voting early and often > tpw_rules
03/22/2016 at 16:15

Thanks for the link — I couldn’t get any additional options to appear, just the “not enough storage” message. The original phone is long gone (and wiped), so that’s not an option. But all of my stuff is just sitting there and I simply can’t access it because iTunes is blocking me from reviewing it. I know you can manage you phone's contents via iTunes in real time, but I can't find anything that allows me to edit the backup (even though that link said I should be able to).

Ash78, voting early and often > Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap
03/22/2016 at 16:17

Plus I don't have a Mac...and based on this experience (and a few other things), they're not exactly selling me!

tpw_rules > Ash78, voting early and often
03/22/2016 at 16:21

When does it tell you? It should get part way through the restore. The first stage is restoring the system information then it just syncs everything. Perhaps they changed it with a new iTunes version.

jariten1781 > Ash78, voting early and often
03/22/2016 at 16:26

One of my coworkers got caught with this. I think they ended up using some program on their computer called Dr. Phone (or something like that) that opened the backup and let them select file by file what to restore.

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > Ash78, voting early and often
03/22/2016 at 16:34

It’s definitely possible. Just find your folder where the backups are stored. It should be easier if you’re on PC. And if you go through the files you might be able to see them but you can open them.

Moves-Like-Senna > Ash78, voting early and often
03/22/2016 at 16:35

Wait, do most people really shop by price point? (I bought an iPhone 6Plus 128GB outright with Apple care in Canuckistan... it cost more than a base MBP)

Ash78, voting early and often > tpw_rules
03/22/2016 at 16:37

It’s just all or nothing. Once you click “OK” after the storage message, the phone reboots and it’s back to square one. I think I’m going to keep trying third party freeware until I find one that works. So far, I’m hitting brick walls because it was an encrypted backup (just to make things more complex!). I have literally years of texts and contacts on there...and iTunes backup was supposed to be foolproof :D

tpw_rules > Ash78, voting early and often
03/22/2016 at 16:43

You do it while the dialog is there and click behind it. When does it pop up the dialog?

Ash78, voting early and often > Moves-Like-Senna
03/22/2016 at 16:45

Yep, especially with subsidized plans where the new phones are $200 for 16GB, $300 for 32GB, and so on. The $100 premium is a much larger relative piece than people who buy phones outright. Most phone are not impulse buys, so they're subject to more scrutiny, but people paying the full amount for unlocked phones are far less price sensitive than most.

Moves-Like-Senna > Ash78, voting early and often
03/22/2016 at 16:51

Huh, interesting to know. I don’t know how I was completely oblivious to this but it makes sense. I guess I never thought about it. Thanks!

Ash78, voting early and often > tpw_rules
03/22/2016 at 16:51

The dialog pops up a few seconds after the restore process begins. You can't click anywhere else on the screen until you acknowledge, then the phone reboots automatically (while I'm typing this). I just updated all software to be on the safe side.

Galileo Humpkins (aka MC Clap Yo Handz) > Ash78, voting early and often
03/22/2016 at 16:51

Seems like tpw and I suggested the same thing and it’s not working. Did you try iMazing or Wondershare ? Full disclosure, I’ve never used them but they’re recommended in various forums for people in the same situation.

Ash78, voting early and often > Galileo Humpkins (aka MC Clap Yo Handz)
03/22/2016 at 18:09

Thanks again...I've got about 4-5 separate pieces of software I'll try. I'm already at the point where I would have paid the extra $100 for 32GB if the company gave me the option. Hindsight, etc.

Galileo Humpkins (aka MC Clap Yo Handz) > Ash78, voting early and often
03/22/2016 at 19:43

Ugh, I know how that goes. Hopefully something will work. Worst case maybe buy and then return one from somewhere.