One thing I have been hearing a lot lately from several friends is that after attempting to back up their iPhone or iPad to the all new iCloud service, it’s telling them that the backup size is too big for the initial free 5GB quota and that they need to purchase more space.
This might seem logical on the surface. I have a 32GB iPhone that is nearly full, how can I possibly expect that to fit in a 5GB space? But when it comes to the size of your backup, what’s really important is what kind of data is filling up your device.
What is not backed up
Not all data stored on your device is backed up. So a whole lot of the 32GB of space that I’m using up is not included at all in the backup size. This is okay though because the things that aren’t backed up don’t need to be. Just like on a computer, there’s little value in backing up the Windows directory when Windows can just be reinstalled from the DVD.
So what kind of data is not included in the backup?
The operating system itself and any system updates are not included in the backup.
Music, photos, videos, etc sync’d from your computer are not backed up (the idea being that they already exist on your computer so there is no need to back it up.)
Apps and other content purchased from the app store are not backed up because the app store already has a copy and they can be re-downloaded at any time.
Properly developed applications that cache large amounts of data (for example the Maps app) keep this data in a location that is not backed up because cached data is safe to delete.
In reality, the items listed above make up the bulk of the data on your device. So then what does need to get backed up? And why are some people finding that 5GB isn’t enough to cut it?
What is backed up?
So what is really taking up all that space? Most likely it’s either pictures in your camera roll or applications that store large amounts of data in locations that are backed up. If like me, you rarely pull your photos out of your camera roll, you will probably want to do that periodically because it can significantly bloat the size of your backup.
But each application also stores it’s own private data in locations that may or may not be backed up depending on how it’s used. Unlike the Maps application I gave in the earlier example, the iBooks application stores a potentially large amount of data such as PDF’s and other ebooks that you really do want to get backed up.
But sometimes the decision is not so obvious. For example, back issues of “The Economist” magazine? I’ll never look at them again after I read them and they are potentially huge. But by default, they are going to get backed up. So how do I tell iCloud to ignore them?
Telling iCloud which apps to back up
Fortunately iCloud gives you a pretty easy to use interface for toggling on and off which applications you want to include in your backup. Remember that the applications themselves are never backed up, but this controls whether or not the data stored in those applications is.
- Open the Settings app
- Tap iCloud in the list
- Tap “Storage and Backup” at the bottom
- If “iCloud Backup” is not switched on, switch it on
- Tap “Manage Storage”
- Tap on your device at the top of the page
Here, you will see a list of applications with on/off switches next to them and the approximate size of the data in those apps. Look over the list for large amounts of data in applications that you might not want backed up. For example, my preferred podcast app “Downcast” defaults to being backed up but by nature, podcasts are relatively useless after they are listened to and get more irrelevant the older they get. Recent podcasts can always be downloaded again. So I turned that off and saved a lot of space in my backup.
From this screen you can also see the size of your camera roll. If it’s very large, you probably ought to pull the photos off onto your computer and try to do that more regularly.
With a few tweaks, I am sure you can get your backup size to well within the 5GB allotment.
