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Recover data & restore phone

I accidentally backed up my iPhone to an old back up from 2019 when trying to update my iTunes and don’t know how to recover my photos, contacts, messages, or anything else. And my iCloud storage was full so not everything was backed up to the iCloud. Can this be rectified somehow?

iPhone XR, iOS 14

Posted on Jun 12, 2021 12:41 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 12, 2021 12:46 PM

It won’t be easy. Do you have a newer backup on your computer, or was 2 years ago the last time you backed up? Did you have iCloud sync enabled (that is not the same as iCloud Backup)? You can check that by logging in to https://iCloud.com and seeing what data is available.


For photos are you sure you didn’t do ANY of these ways of preserving photos and videos?


  • emailed, texted or messaged the photos to friends or family
  • iCloud photo sync
  • iCloud backup
  • iTunes backup
  • Transfer your photos to your computer via USB cable
  • Apple Photo Stream
  • Sync to Google Photos
  • Sync to some other photo archiving service such as Shutterfly
  • Sync to Dropbox
  • Sync to box.com
  • Sync to Microsoft OneDrive
  • Sync to Amazon Photos
  • back up to Livedrive
  • Backup to any other backup or archiving service


4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 12, 2021 12:46 PM in response to SallyAnnN

It won’t be easy. Do you have a newer backup on your computer, or was 2 years ago the last time you backed up? Did you have iCloud sync enabled (that is not the same as iCloud Backup)? You can check that by logging in to https://iCloud.com and seeing what data is available.


For photos are you sure you didn’t do ANY of these ways of preserving photos and videos?


  • emailed, texted or messaged the photos to friends or family
  • iCloud photo sync
  • iCloud backup
  • iTunes backup
  • Transfer your photos to your computer via USB cable
  • Apple Photo Stream
  • Sync to Google Photos
  • Sync to some other photo archiving service such as Shutterfly
  • Sync to Dropbox
  • Sync to box.com
  • Sync to Microsoft OneDrive
  • Sync to Amazon Photos
  • back up to Livedrive
  • Backup to any other backup or archiving service


Jun 12, 2021 12:48 PM in response to SallyAnnN

If your iCloud storage was full, the backup that is there may not restore as it may be corrupted. Similarly for other things that sync to iCloud like contacts, notes, messages (if you use messages in iCloud). Whenever a storage system is full, then new data that is trying to be written there can result in corrupted data in your account. Your incoming iCloud email also will be rejected by the mail server.


All you can do is try again to restore using whatever is the most recent backup shown to you when starting the restore. Your sync’d data like contacts and photos will then re-sync to the device, again though only what is there to sync will do so.

Jun 12, 2021 12:50 PM in response to SallyAnnN

If I understood you correctly, then you restored your iPhone from an older backup file (2019) by using iTunes on your computer. You do not have a current backup on iCloud. Do you have a more recent backup on your computer? If you do not have another and more recent backup anywhere then you have nothing to restore from. Your iPhone is currently restored from your 2019 backup and that is all you have. This means that what you have now, on your iPhone, is active and there are no other options to utilize.


Axel F.

Recover data & restore phone

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