How to back up important iPhone data without a full device backup

In this comprehensive guide, we show you how to back up your contacts, photos, messages, notes, 2FA codes, and other essential things without fully backing up your iPhone to iCloud or a computer.

When you buy a new iPhone, you can directly transfer data from your old iPhone to it. Yet another option is to take advantage of Apple’s temporary 21-day iCloud backup feature, which allows you to back up your entire iPhone, even if you don’t have sufficient free iCloud storage.

However, many people, including me, prefer setting up the new iPhone as a fresh device, without restoring a previous backup and transferring unnecessary stuff. Instead, we like to carry over only the essentials, such as contacts, passwords, reminders, messages, and photos. I’ve created this guide for such individuals and also for those who need to erase their iPhone to troubleshoot major issues, but are unable to create full device backups due to limited space or other reasons.

Things you have to worry about backing up and things you don’t

When you’re switching to another phone or erasing your current one to troubleshoot issues, you have to ensure that contacts, calendar events, reminders, photos & videos, messages, notes, voice recordings, journal entries, account passwords, and important documents are saved to a cloud storage solution or an external drive.

You don’t have to worry about your Apple Music songs and playlists, social media posts, Netflix viewing history, emails, Amazon orders, and other such things, as these are already stored on the servers of the respective services. Once you log back in, all this data will reappear on your device like before.

Back up essentials to iCloud

Apple’s iCloud is the best place to start when you want to back up your device data. You can save contacts, reminders, Safari browsing history, notes, voice recordings, and a lot more here. Then, when you sign in to a new or erased iPhone, iPad, or Mac with the same Apple ID, all this data is synced back to the device.

The only major problem with this is that Apple offers a mere 5 GB of free iCloud space with every Apple Account. So, unless you pay for an iCloud+ or Apple One subscription, you can’t back up a lot of things, especially Photos and Messages, to iCloud. That said, 5 GB is sufficient for contacts, calendars, reminders, notes, and other such things.

1) Open the Settings app on your iPhone, tap your name at the top, and select iCloud.

2) Tap See All, and enable these switches to save those items to iCloud and merge data if prompted.

• Health
• iCloud Calendar
• Contacts
• Reminders
• Safari history, bookmarks, reading list, etc.
• News app data
• Stocks app data
• Home app configurations
• Wallet app passes and other information
• Game Center data
• Siri daya
• Freeform projects
• Journal entries
• Phone and FaceTime call logs
• Image Playground data

After that, you can scroll down and allow stock as well as third-party apps, such as Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Shazam, and WhatsApp, to save data to iCloud.

About contacts, notes, calendars, and reminders saved to your Google or Microsoft accounts

If you have contacts, calendars, notes, and reminders in your Gmail or Outlook accounts, they are on their respective Google and Microsoft servers. Simply sign in again with these accounts on your new or erased iPhone to get back everything.

Back up your photos and videos

If you have sufficient free iCloud space, go to iOS Settings > your name > iCloud > Photos and turn on “Sync this iPhone” to back up all pictures and videos from the Photos app to your iCloud account.

If you have a massive photo library and limited iCloud space, consider backing up your iPhone photos to Google Photos, OneDrive, Dropbox, or other cloud storage services. You can easily create multiple accounts with these services and back up everything, all while staying on the free tier.

Yet another option is to connect a USB thumb drive to your iPhone and copy the picture to it.

Back up PDF, Word files, and other documents

Return to iPhone’s iCloud Settings page, tap “Drive” and turn on “Sync this iPhone” if not already. Going forward, everything you save to the iCloud Drive section in the Apple Files app will upload to iCloud.

If your existing documents are in the local On My iPhone section, copy or move them to iCloud Drive so they can be backed up.

Note that files in Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, etc., are already saved to their respective servers. So, you don’t have to worry about backing them. In case you don’t have enough iCloud space, you can use drag and drop or the iOS Share Sheet to move your local On My iPhone files to these third-party services.

Back up your login passwords and 2FA codes

If you don’t use a third-party password manager like 1Password, but instead rely on Apple’s own Passwords app, then make sure “Sync this iPhone” is activated for it. This ensures your account login credentials, including two-factor authentication (2FA) codes, are available in iCloud.

Important: 2FA authenticator apps from Google and Microsoft also have their own backup feature. Make sure you sign in to their accounts and do that. If you fail to back these up, you may be permanently locked out of your various online accounts.

Back up your notes

If you use Apple’s Notes app, enable iCloud sync from iOS settings. Then, open the Notes app and copy any offline notes in the On My iPhone folder to iCloud.

Back up your SMS and iMessage

Return to iPhone iCloud Settings, tap Messages, and enable “Use on this iPhone.” In case it was already ON, tap the Sync Now button to back up any remaining texts.

Note that message attachments, such as photos, videos, and files, can consume a significant amount of iCloud space. You can reduce the overall size of the Messages app backup by deleting unneeded files in iOS Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Messages > Videos, Photos, and Other. You can also open the Messages app and delete entire conversations.

Confirm everything is backed up to iCloud

After following the above steps, log in to iCloud.com or check the respective apps (such as Contacts) on your iPad and Mac to ensure that all data from your iPhone appears there. If some contacts, photos, notes, or other data are missing, wait and let your iPhone back it up to iCloud. Make sure your device has a stable Wi-Fi or cellular data connection.

Back up WhatsApp messages

If you’re switching handsets, I recommend using WhatsApp’s excellent built-in tool to transfer chats from one iPhone to another. This is quick, happens locally, and ensures all chats, photos, documents, and videos are carried over in mere minutes.

However, if you’re erasing your iPhone or want a second fallback option, back up all your WhatsApp chats to iCloud. It’s slow, and you’ll need sufficient iCloud storage to save your WhatsApp photos and videos.

Back up other local files

If you have offline data in apps like VLC, Infuse, or Documents, manually transfer it to a cloud storage solution, such as iCloud Drive, Google Drive, or Dropbox. You can also send them to your Mac or Windows PC via AirDrop or the Apple Devices app.

Check if an app backs up unfinished projects to its servers

Some apps like Canva already save all your projects to their servers, and you don’t have to worry about them. But if an app works offline or saves unfinished projects to the local app storage, look for an option to back them up to the app’s own servers or to your iCloud Drive.

What’s still missing from your backup

• List of apps currently on your iPhone and your Home Screen layout. Take screenshots and see it when setting up your new/erased iPhone.
• App data for iOS applications that don’t store them on their own servers or iCloud Drive.

Things you cannot back up anywhere

You’ll have to configure the following things from scratch each time you set up an iPhone:

• Face ID, Touch ID, and device passcode
• Apps’ permission preferences: after re-installing the app, open it and allow or disallow it to send you notifications, access your contacts, etc.
• Login information for banking and many other apps. You’ll have to log in, verify via SMS, and follow the standard login procedure for nearly all apps.

I never restore device backups, but I still keep everything backed up

Even though I have enabled iCloud Backup for my iPhone and only allow selected, important apps to be part of it, I never restore an old iPhone’s backup onto a new one. This is because most of my meaningful digital assets, such as contacts, notes, voice memos, and passwords, are already in iCloud, and they appear automatically on the new device when I sign in with my Apple Account.

Secondly, whenever I buy a new iPhone, I transfer all my current iPhone photos and videos to a password-protected external SSD and start fresh on my new device.

Setting up a new iPhone has its thrills, and not restoring a previous backup ensures I don’t carry over months and years of unnecessary stuff onto the new device.

That said, software failure requiring a full device erasure or accidents like cracking the phone screen can happen at any time. So I always advise backing up all iPhone data to iCloud, a computer, or other locations as you see fit.

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2025/08/07/how-to-back-up-iphone-data/