The case for using iTunes, not iCloud, to back up your iPhone

Since iOS 8 was released in September 2014, Apple has encrypted the local storage of all iPhones. That’s not news, but it’s become newly relevant since the company and the FBI started a very loud, very public fight about the data stored on a particular iPhone.

Privacy advocates have praised Apple’s commitment to full-device encryption by default, and after a false start last year, all new Android phones shipping with version 6.0 or higher should be encrypted by default as well. It’s an effective tool for keeping thieves from grabbing your data even if they can take your phone.

If you're looking for comprehensive privacy, including protection from law enforcement entities, there’s still a loophole here: iCloud. Apple encourages the use of this service on every iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch that it sells, and when you do use the service, it backs up your device every time you plug it into its power adapter within range of a known Wi-Fi network. iCloud backups are comprehensive in a way that Android backups still aren’t, and if you’ve been following the San Bernardino case closely, you know that Apple’s own legal process guidelines (PDF) say that the company can hand iMessages, SMS/MMS messages, photos, app data, and voicemail over to law enforcement in the form of an iOS device backup (though some reports claim that Apple wants to strengthen the encryption on iCloud backups, removing the company's ability to hand the data over to law enforcement).

For most users, this will never be a problem, and the convenience of iCloud backups and easy preservation of your data far outweigh any risks. For people who prefer full control over their data, the easiest option is to stop using iCloud and use iTunes instead. This, too, is not news, and in some ways is a regression to the days before iOS 5 when you needed to use a computer to activate, update, and back up your phone at all. But there are multiple benefits to doing local backups, so while the topic is on everyone’s mind we’ll show you how to do it (in case you don’t know) and what you get from it (in case you don’t know everything).

How to do it

First, obviously, you’ll need iTunes. If you have OS X, it’s pre-installed; if you have Windows, it’s over here. Version 12.3 is the first to support iOS 9, and it will run on OS X 10.8 or Windows 7 and anything newer. Connect your phone to your computer with your Lightning cable and, if you’ve never connected them before, tell both the computer and the phone to trust each other when prompted.

From the summary screen, the next thing you’ll want to do is check the “Encrypt iPhone backup” box and set a password—ideally, this would be a unique password separate from your account password or your iOS passcode. Whatever it is, don’t forget it, because if you do, you won’t be able to restore your backup later. Hit the big Back Up Now button, wait for the backup to finish, and you’re done.

You can back your phone up to your computer and to iCloud if you want. This isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition, and there are non-privacy-related reasons for doing a local backup even if you continue to do iCloud backups. If you don’t want your backups on iCloud at all, you can click the “This computer” button to disable backups, or you can do it from within the settings on your iPhone. Also remember to delete old backups from iCloud if you don’t want them up there, since they’ll stay there even if you turn backups off, and Apple won’t keep copies of your stuff on its servers after you’ve deleted it.

To manage and delete your backups locally, you’ll need to go to the iTunes preferences and hit the Devices tab. All backups for all devices along with timestamps and lock icons (to denote an encrypted backup) will be listed here, and you can delete them if you’re running out of drive space or if you just don’t need them anymore.

Why do local, encrypted backups?

Privacy is definitely one reason to use local backups; if your encrypted phone backup is stored on your encrypted laptop that is itself protected with a strong password, there’s very little chance that anyone without the right credentials can get access to anything.

There are also benefits when you’re restoring that backup to your iPhone. As Apple’s page on encrypted iTunes backups outlines, encrypted local backups are the only ones that contain saved account passwords, Wi-Fi settings, browsing history, and data from the Health app. Apple doesn’t want this data on its servers for security and privacy reasons, and it’s not stored in unencrypted local backups for the same reason. Use encrypted local backups, and you get that info back if you need to do a restore.

It also helps if you’re upgrading to a new phone or using a loaner or replacement phone. When you restore an iCloud backup to a phone or tablet that’s not the phone or tablet you backed it up from, you don’t lose any of your photos or iMessage history or anything like that, but you do lose the credentials for e-mail accounts and any other apps that require authentication.

This makes it so that someone with the password for your Apple ID couldn’t restore one of your backups to his or her own phone and gain access to every e-mail account and app that you’ve signed into on your own phone. But it also makes it a hassle to move over to a new iPhone or one AppleCare just replaced. Encrypted backups retain and restore that account information even if you’re moving to a different phone.

Encrypted local backups won’t be the best choice for everybody. You give up convenience, as is usually the case when you make security and privacy a priority. You need to remember to connect your phone to your computer every day or two, you need to devote local storage space to the backups, and you won’t have access to those backups if anything happens to the computer. It’s up to you to decide what balance of privacy and security works for you.