My partner just got a new iPhone 16e after losing his old one. When he tried to restore from a backup during setup, it indicated that he had no backups available. After cycling through the setup a couple of times, the iPhone booted up as a new device. Once it was set up, he realized that everything from two weeks ago was missing, yet he had access to messages, photos, and apps from high school, which was over three years ago. According to Google, Apple backups are only stored for 180 days, so how could he still have access to his high school data? He definitely had made a complete backup within a month prior to losing the old phone. Is this a common issue?
2 Answers
It sounds like there might be a misunderstanding about how iCloud backups work. According to Apple, backups are available for 180 days after you stop using iCloud Backup. So unless your partner disabled the backup or waited six months before trying to restore, those backups should still be there. It's possible that the recent backup didn't actually get saved because the iCloud might have been full at the time, preventing new data from being stored. I'd recommend checking the iCloud settings on his other device for more clarity on this.
Another possibility is that he thought he'd backed up his data recently, but it might not have completed properly. Sometimes if iCloud storage is full, it won't back up new data, which could explain why you’re seeing old messages and apps from years ago. It’s worth double-checking whether he had enough space on iCloud at the time of the last backup.
Good point! Also, sometimes backups can get mixed up if there are multiple devices logged into one Apple ID. It’s crucial to be on the right device when backing up!
That makes sense, but it’s still confusing why he would get old stuff instead of what's current. Maybe the last backup just didn't go through for some reason.