Does iPhone Backup Include Photos? What Else Does It Backup?

The iPhone has come a long way since its debut in 2007. But, even then, it seemed like Apple was always major steps ahead of its competitors.

The iPhone is chock full of storage options to help keep your backups on track. Does iPhone backup include photos?

Check out this guide to backing up your iPhone with the latest storage features in the macOS.

Table of Contents

What is an iPhone Backup?

As the saying goes, one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. With Apple offering free data storage to users, they have no interest in the type of data or information you store.

But to users, this information is worth its weight in gold (or pixels). Apple created iCloud as a storage solution for phone backups when users couldn’t get to a physical backup location.

iCloud keeps your data safe and secure on remote servers instead of just a phone or computer. You can sync this data between devices for easy retrieval.

When you got your new phone, you were prompted to create an iCloud account so you have access to all your information wherever you can get online. Your Apple ID and password are most likely your iCloud login information which grants you administrative access to your account.

You get a default amount of storage with your phone purchase, but this amount can be increased depending on how much access you want to information across devices. Some users use iCloud as their main method of file sharing so it makes sense to maximize the storage options to store the most amount of data.

Is My Backup on iTunes?

In the olden days, all iPhones had backups stored on iTunes. These backups were easy to retrieve as long as you had access to the physical computer where these backups were stored.

The trouble with this storage method is that it relied on the computer to save you from data loss. It didn’t account for potential damage to the computer in the event of an emergency.

Upgrades in cloud storage take away the risk you’ll lose data on both your phone and computer at the same time losing everything. Also, just about everything is stored on the cloud in your backup. Learn more about syncing iPhones to computers here https://setapp.com/how-to/backup-iphone-to-mac.

Does iPhone backup include photos? Yes, and much more.

Take a look at how Apple is solving all your storage and backup needs without you ever knowing they’re doing it.

Restoring Your iPhone

The biggest benefit of iPhone backups in iCloud is the cloak of invisibility. You can’t see it, but it’s certainly there and happening all the time.

Your phone backs up notes, calendar appointments, photos, and more. You’ll even have information from Apple’s native apps stored in your iCloud account.

Here’s a listing of everything Apple captures during a backup:

Contacts – Set up iCloud as your default for your address book and it’ll sync all your contacts to iCloud servers.
Calendar – Each appointment added to connected iCloud calendars get synced with each backup onto your account server. Make sure that all your appointments default to this account and not web email servers so you don’t lose information.
Notes – Any notes you create get synced to iCloud along with their attachments or photos.
Native Apps – The documents you create in Pages, Keynote, and Numbers all get transferred to your iCloud storage by default. The same isn’t true for your computer so be sure to save to iCloud if you want to access information from a mobile device.
Photos – Enable the iCloud Photos feature using the Settings menu on your phone. This transfers everything on your camera roll to iCloud as long as you have enough storage space.
Music – Apple Music subscribers have access to their music libraries from any device without the need to back anything up. available on all devices.
Device Settings – You won’t lose your device preferences if your phone requires a restore. iCloud backs up your phone preferences with every storage attempt.
Messages – Don’t fret about lost information from old text messages. You can access texts from years past as long as your phone texts from your iCloud account. These messages include iMessage, SMS and MMS messages.
Health Data – Don’t lose key fitness data or your workout progress. Your iCloud account keeps track of the health data on your phone so you don’t lose any key information.
Apple Watch Data – Just when you thought there was a little privacy on your Apple Watch, iCloud has come and killed that dream.Your Apple Watch data is all tracked through your iCloud account in case you need to restore your watch to an earlier setting.

The one thing that’s limited is Apple’s ability to backup third party apps. You might lose some of your data if you have photos or other sensitive information stored only in third-party apps.

Make sure you save photos to your phone when they’re created in apps. This saves you the headache of losing priceless memories down the road.