“New Phone, same number. Lost my contacts, so text me your name and I’ll add you.”
“Phone just died and I lost all my Pictures! I’m so upset!”
Has this ever happened to you? It seems like I see messages like this every day on social media. If it’s happened to you, or you’re afraid it will happen to you, I’m here to help. With a series of blog posts I will show you how to ensure you are staying synced and up to date so You don’t need to worry. This week we’ll look at keeping your iPhone’s Contacts and Photo’s backed up. Next week, we’ll look at Android. Finally, we’ll look at ways you can switch from iPhone to Android, or vice versa while taking your data with you.
Why Should You Sync Your iPhone’s Data?
If you have anything on your phone you want to keep, you should keep a copy backed up somewhere. There are too many bad things that can happen to our devices. They can stop working altogether. They could be lost or stolen. They can get dropped making it difficult to access our data. And chances are, we have some valuable data on our phones. Photos of your family? Video of your child’s first steps? Pictures of your last vacation? Your last 3 vacations? How about the phone number of everyone you know? How many phone numbers can you remember without accessing your phone’s contact list? We have come to rely on these devices a lot in our lives, and the data on them is important. It’s smart to have your data synced before something happens. If you wait, it will be harder, more expensive or maybe even impossible to retrieve your data.
The Simplest Way to Keep Your iPhone Synced
By far, the simplest way to keep the data on your iPhone synced and backed up is by using iCloud. Apple gives users 5GB of storage in iCloud for free. This is enough for most people’s entire contact list and a good number of photos or videos as well.
To manage iCloud on your iPhone:
1. Go to Settings, then ‘Your Name’
2. Tap on iCloud
3. Under ‘APPS USING iCLOUD’ you can flick the toggle switches to turn on iCloud. You want to make sure the toggles show green for Contacts and Photos to ensure they are syncing.
You can also see your storage usage here to find out how much storage you have available and what has been used up. (Instructions for Changing your iCloud feature settings found at https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT207689)
A NOTE ABOUT PRIVACY: It’s important to think about your privacy when it comes to your data. A cloud solution like iCloud means the data leaves your control. However, if you’re using an iPhone you are already putting trust in Apple to protect your data. Data breaches CAN happen so think about who has your information.
A More Complicated Approach That Gives You More Control
The above iCloud sync is nice and simple, but it relies on Apple. It requires complete trust in Apple to not only keep your data accessible for you but also to keep it safe from third parties. If you want to keep the data from your phone on your PC or Mac read on.
We’ll use iTunes to create a backup of your phone on your PC or Mac computer.
1. Install the latest version of iTunes
2. Connect your phone to your computer with the supplied cable
3. Under the Play Controls in iTunes you’ll see a little Phone Icon – Click on it
4. Click on Summary in the menu on the left side of the screen
5. Find the box entitled ‘Backups’
6. In the right-hand column of the ‘Backups’ box is an option to ‘Back Up Now’ – Click on that and your iPhone will be backed up to your computer.
Right beside ‘Back Up Now’ is an option to ‘Restore Backup…’ – You can use that after you get a new phone to restore the backup you’ve made.
In Conclusion
Whether you choose to sync with iCloud or save your data to your own computer (or both!), you’ll be happy that you did when it’s time for a new phone. Especially if your phone is lost, stolen or otherwise inaccessible. If you want help with making a back-up of your data or setting up iCloud sync book an appointment:
