Back up your iPhone and iPad to your Mac for before updating iOS

Your Mac is the best backup device for your iPhone and iPad, but how many people bother to use it? It is essential to have a backup whenever a major iOS update is available, so get it done today!

You should not need reminding about backups, but most people don’t create them and when something goes wrong with an operating system update, whether it is iOS or macOS, they are in a bit of a pickle. Their computer or device no longer boots and they don’t have a solution.

There is an old saying, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. The chances are that nothing will go wrong during an operating system upgrade or update, but it does happen to someone somewhere and it might be you next time.

With iOS 10 and macOS released in September, you need backups of your Mac, iPhone and iPad.

Back up your photos

Plug your phone into the Mac using the USB cable and it should trigger two apps - iTunes and Photos.

Photos may be backed up to iCloud, but even so, it is good to have a copy on your Mac’s disk. Select the Import tab in the Photos app and click Import All New Items. Do the same with the iPad and plug it in to copy any new photos.

No matter what happens to the iPhone or iPad during the upgrade, you have a copy of your photos on the Mac.

Back up your iPhone and iPad

iTunes should open and automatically back up the iPhone and iPad. When did you last back up? Go to iTunes, Preferences and select the Devices tab.

Here you can see that I backed up my iPhone today. The date on the previous backup was July last year! iPhones and iPads don’t need the Mac these days, so they are rarely plugged in and it is easy to forget to back up.

Backups can be made to iCloud, but the free 5GB is used up in no time, so you might not have space online to back up. If you are not backing up online and you never plug the device into the Mac, backups are never made.

The backup dates on my iPad are over a year old, so they need plugging in and backing up before updating iOS.

Close Preferences and click the iPhone or iPad icon in the toolbar to view the device options.

There are options to back up to iCloud or the computer, but if you are on the free iCloud plan, choose the computer.

If you do not have a current backup, click Back Up Now.

If an iOS upgrade causes problems with your iPhone or iPad, the Restore Backup features here will put back the system exactly as it was.

There is an option to encrypt backups. I had assumed that this was only to secure the backup when FileVault was not encrypting the disk contents, but it turns out (see comments below) that if encryption is not enabled for backups then your passwords, Wi-Fi settings, web browsing history, and health data are not backed up. Enable encryption and these items are included in the backup.

Encrypt your backups even if you use disk encryption.