The Right Way to Back Up Your iPhone Before Installing iOS 18 Beta

The iOS 18 public beta and developer beta are now available for anyone to install on compatible iPhone models, giving you a taste of the features that will become standard on millions of phones this fall.

Before you jump into the beta arena, though, it’s important to remember that these are pre-release versions of the iPhone operating system, which should give you something to think about. While we haven’t encountered any spectacular issues with the betas so far — aside from realizing that you can’t revert to a previous version of watchOS on your Apple Watch — it’s always best to install the iOS 18 beta on a phone that’s not your everyday device, as you may run into bugs and other software issues.

And above all, make sure you have not only a good backup of your iPhone data, but the right kind of backup. before you’re starting the iOS 18 beta installation process. Follow these steps to make sure you don’t lose any data if you decide to revert to iOS 17 later.

While you’re here, check out how RCS messages work in iOS 18 and check out our iOS 18 beta cheat sheet .

Why iCloud backup not working with beta version

You’re probably used to using iCloud Backup to regularly back up your data. It runs in the background (while you’re sleeping and charging your device) and has the least backup friction, as long as you have enough space in your iCloud drive. Go to Settings > (Your Name) > iCloud > iCloud Backup and turn on Back up this iPhone if not active yet.

However, with iOS beta, iCloud backup introduces a problem: You can’t restore from that cloud backup if you revert to iOS 17. And unfortunately, iCloud only keeps the most recent backup — you can’t choose from previous iterations of backups. If you try to use an iOS 18 cloud backup to restore to iOS 17, you’ll get an error.

Therefore, you need to make a backup copy on your computer.

Is it worth encrypting your local backup?

Before you create this backup, you should decide whether you want to enable one of the options, Encrypt local backup. For security purposes, this feature encrypts your data to prevent someone who has access to your computer from accessing it. This option also keeps sensitive information in a backup, such as saved passwords and personal data in the Health and Fitness apps.

The downside is that it requires you to create a separate password for your backup. If you forget or lose that password, the entire backup will be useless. So you should save that password somewhere you can easily recover it. In the context of backing up iOS 17 as a backup for installing the iOS 18 beta, you’ll have to decide if that’s an acceptable trade-off.

Create a local iPhone backup on your Mac

To perform this type of backup, all you need is some disk space and a little patience:

1. Connect your iPhone to your Mac.
2. Open a new Finder window (select File > New Finder Windowor press Command-N).
3. In the sidebar on the left, select your iPhone Locations.
4. If you want to encrypt your data, click Encrypt local backup select the checkbox and set a password.
5. On the General tab, click Back up now.
6. Click Manage backups.
7. Right-click (or Control-click) the backup you created and select Archives.

Marking a backup as an archive prevents it from being overwritten by another local backup or automatically deleted if your Mac runs out of space.

Create a local iPhone backup on Windows

The iTunes app is still the main channel for working with a connected iPhone on Windows. Open iTunes and do the following:

1. Connect your iPhone to your Windows computer.
2. In iTunes, click iPhone button in the upper left corner.
3. Click summary.
4. If you want to encrypt your data, click Encrypt local backup option and set a password.
5. Click Back up now.
6. Click Manage backups.
7. Right-click on the backup you created and select ArchivesTaking this extra step protects your backup from being overwritten by another local backup or automatically deleted if your computer is low on space.

Once you have created a backup, you can start using the iOS 18 beta with the confidence that if you ever need to revert back to iOS 17, you’ll be able to get your iPhone back up and running quickly.