(4 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)What happened to my data?
If you are here, it means that you have hunted down your backup with CopyTrans Backup Extractor, looked inside – yet found no data you needed? Do not worry, let us try to help. First of all, there is iCloud backup and there is iCloud syncing – and they are not the same. This is what you see on your iPhone, when your data is synced to iCloud:
If you have your photos (contacts, calendars, notes, messages) synced to iCloud – like I do in the screenshot – their originals will be stored in iCloud, not on your device. Therefore, they will not be included into your iCloud backup – it is formed out of local files.
But if your data was synced to iCloud – the chances are that it is still there. See alternative ways for restoring your data below:
- How to get my Photos and Videos?
- How to get my Contacts, Notes and Calendars?
- How to met my Messages?
- My data must be in the backup. What do I do?
Photos and Videos
If your photos and videos were synced to iCloud (iCloud Photos was enabled on your device), the originals of your photos will most likely be stored in iCloud. Your iPhone will only have thumbnails – small copies in low resolution. This way, the photos can’t be included into your iCloud backup – because they are not actually on your device! The good news is – they are probably still in iCloud.
You can check it yourself: head to icloud.com, sign in with your Apple ID and password and choose “Photos”. You will then see all the photos stored in your iCloud.
If you want to download all iCloud photos to your PC at once, we recommend to use another application of our development, CopyTrans Cloudly.
For instructions, see our step-by-step guide on how to download all photos from iCloud to PC in one go!
Contacts, Notes and Calendars
If your Contacts, Notes and Calendars were synced to iCloud at the moment of the backup – they would not be included. However, they are probably still there. You can check whether they are still inside by heading to icloud.com. Enter your Apple ID and password and look inside categories to see what’s inside.
If you have your contacts, notes and calendars in iCloud, you can get to them using our application, CopyTrans Contacts (you will need an iPhone to work with it).
If this is all right with you, see how to manage your Contacts, Notes and Calendars with CopyTrans Contacts.
Messages
If the messages were deleted from your device while it was synced to iCloud, it means that they were erased from iCloud and all associated devices as well and didn’t make it into your iCloud backup. The last thing you can do to recover them is to check out local backups on your PC with CopyTrans Backup Extractor.
If the messages weren’t deleted but you don’t have access to the device any longer (if it was stolen, lost or broken), you can recover them using another iPhone. You will just need to sync Messages to iCloud (Settings -> Your Apple ID -> iCloud -> Messages -> Set the toggle to “On”).
TIP:
Restoring your messages from iCloud will overwrite all the current message history on the iPhone you are using, but this should not be a problem if you back up the iPhone first. Later on, you can use CopyTrans Contacts to extract text conversations to your PC or CopyTrans Shelbee to transfer messages between iPhones.
My data must be in the backup. What do I do?
If you’ve checked it all and nothing helped, there are still a couple of things that you can do:
- Check whether you have logged into the right iCloud account: maybe you have a different one where your data is actually stored?
- If you are sure the account and password are correct and the data should be in the backup, contact our support team at copytrans@copytrans.net, sending a brief description of the problem and your log files. We will review your case and advise!
