Keeping our data safe is essential to protect what we value most on our iPhone. That is why we will see below how to make an iCloud backup with all our data, including everything we have on WhatsApp, our photos and iMessage conversations. The process to create the copies is quick, although the wait comes with each creation of a new backup. Let’s see all this in detail.
How to backup to iCloud
Back up to iCloud it is quite simple to configure. Once you have it done, the copies will be made automatically every night when your iPhone is connected to a Wi-Fi network, plugged into the power and with the screen locked. And it will always do so with all the options you have established. To do this, you must follow these steps:
- On your iPhone, go to Settings and tap on your name and Apple ID (it’s at the top, along with your photo).
- Once there, go to iCloud> Backup to iCloud and activate the Backup button to iCloud.
- Too you can activate the copies with mobile data, although as is obvious, it will affect your data rate.
- At the bottom you have a button to make the backup right now, as well as an indication of the date and time of the last copy made.
That’s all you need to know to back up your iPhone or iPad to iCloud. With the automatic copy system, you won’t have to do anything else so that your data is always saved every night.
Make sure to include WhatsApp, Photos and iMessage in your copy
If we want to make a complete iCloud backup, neither WhatsApp nor our photo library can be missing. Neither do iMessages, if we use it regularly. Starting with WhatsApp, this is what you need to do to save all your conversations in full:
- Open WhatsApp on your iPhone and go to Settings.
- In the Chats section, tap Backup.
Here you will see several options. To start with, you can do a backup right now, which will help you if you are setting up your new iPhone or planning to sell your iPhone on the second-hand market.
Below there are two options, the first to choose the frequency of the backup (daily is the most appropriate to avoid surprises) and the possibility of including or not the videos that are in your conversations. It is very possible that before making the copy, you want to give it a spin to clean WhatsApp on your iPhone and lighten space.
Be careful with WhatsApp, because it is a real space eater both on your iPhone and in the iCloud copy
To save your photos in iCloud backup, just go to Settings> Apple ID> iCloud> Photos and activate the photos in iCloud. And before entering Photos, you will see all the elements that you can save in this copy. Make sure all the ones you want are activated, with special attention to Messages. This way you will get everything back when you install a copy in iCloud.
I’ve run out of iCloud space
iCloud has a great backup system. It is comfortable, fast and easy to configure. However, its big drawback is running out of space in iCloud. If this is your case, there are only two solutions. The first is to free up space on your device so that the iCloud backup is smaller. To do this, go to Settings> Apple ID> Manage Storage and check which elements take up a lot. It will serve you for the next step, which is to free up space.
In the copies section you will find all the devices that keep a backup in your iCloud account. If you recently switched iPhone or iPad, delete copies of those old devices to earn valuable gigabytes. The photo library is also a suspect of accumulating space, give it a review by deleting photos and videos that you do not need.
WhatsApp is also a bottomless pit of occupied space. In the previous section we indicated how to make space in this app too, so check it out. And finally, iCloud Drive is another candidate to drop ballast.
If you have already done all this or you cannot slim down the space of your iPhone any more, there is only one option left: pay for more space in iCloud. In the iCloud settings, you will see a section to change the storage plan (the benefits of iCloud + are included here). The prices are 0.99 euros per month for 50GB, 2.99 euros per month for 200GB and 9.99 euros per month for 2TB. If you already have Apple One, you can add this additional space to the one you already have.