"iCloud backup is taking forever! It has already been backing up for about 12 hours! Is there any way to speed this up? I'm backing up, so I can restore & then update to iOS 14 beta. iPhone 11 Pro Max, iOS 13.5..."
- Excerpted from Reddit.com
Recently, many iOS users complain iCloud Backup taking forever while they back up their iPhone data before updating to iOS 14. If you run into difficulty while backing up with iCloud and want to know how to speed up iCloud Backup, you may need to try the following tricks.
Part 1. FAQs You May Concern before Fixing iCloud Backup Taking Forever
Part 2. How to Fix iCloud Backup Taking Forever?
Part 3. Try iCloud Backup Alternative to Backup iPhone in Minutes (Recommended)
Before you take steps to troubleshoot iPhone taking forever to back up, you may doubt a lot: What can iCloud back up? How long does it take to back up from iCloud normally? Why is iCloud backup taking so long? Well, you can find the answers below.
iCloud is designed by Apple to back up all the following data on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod, so that you can switch to a new device without losing data by restoring data from iCloud backup later:
Many people report that the iCloud backup is taking hours or even days to complete, leaving them to wait endlessly. Well, how long does iCloud backup normally take on earth? Actually, the time an iCloud backup takes may differ with your data size and network connection. For example, if you have a 1 Mbps Internet connection and 1.5GB of data on an iPhone, it may take 3 hours to finish backing up the following data:
Besides, if there is insufficient storage in iCloud or iPhone's internal memory, it is hard to predict how long iCloud backup will take. Therefore, if you discover iCloud backup taking days, you can consider those factors and take action accordingly.
You may like: How Long Does It Take to Restore an iPhone on iTunes/iCloud?
As mentioned above, poor Internet connection, large files, and not enough iCloud or phone internal memory storage may lead to iCloud backup taking too long. Also, other factors may give rise to this result, including:
Why is my backup taking so long? You have already known the hard-iron truth. To fix this problem accordingly, you can continue reading the solutions below.
Regularly backing iPhone data is of great importance. If iCloud backup is taking forever, how to speed up iCloud backup? You can try these tips and tricks.
This way refreshes the system to fix a great many bugs. Although it seems like a universal solution to many iPhone, Android, and computer issues, it does solve the problem of iCloud backup taking too long most of the time.
Too many unnecessary files occupy the storage space and make the process of reading and scanning files slow. If iCloud backup becomes slow, you can clear the Safari browser cookies and temp files, app caches, and other useless files from your iPhone's internal memory to free up more iPhone storage space. Also, permanently deleting photos, videos, and music of hundreds of megabytes will enlarge more space.
As poor network connection can make iCloud backup slow, you can check whether the Internet connection is in poor condition by opening a Safari search result. If it opens the page slowly, you can connect to a faster Wi-Fi network.
When many apps run in the background, iCloud backup taking slow will also occur. If you do not want to delete those apps, you can disable apps that prevent you from backing up iPhone from Settings:
Go to Settings on your iPhone > Tap your Apple ID > iCloud > Disable the App's backup option.
If the iCloud storage is not enough, you can remove the old iCloud backups to free up more storage and speed up backup. This way will turn off relevant apps and delete the backups from iCloud completely.
How to make iCloud backup faster?
For iOS 10.2 and earlier versions: On your iPhone, navigate to Settings > General > Storage & iCloud Usage > Choose the Manage Storage option under the iCloud section > Tap the device you want to manage under the Backups option > Select the Show All Apps under the Choose Data to Back Up section > Toggle off the apps you want > Confirm your operation in the pop-up window.
For iOS 10.3 and later versions: Open Settings on your iPhone > Tap your Apple ID > iCloud > Storage > Manage Storage > Choose your device under the Backups section, if you use the same Apple ID on multiple iOS devices > Hit the Show All Apps > Turn off the apps you want > Click the Turn off & Delete option from the pop-up.
If you back up your iPhone for the first time or have not backed up your iPhone for a long time, it will take a long time to back up files. Thus, you can back up your iPhone more frequently to make the future backup smoothly.
If there is no old backup in iCloud storage, iCloud backup taking forever may result from your iPhone's old operating system. You can then update your iPhone to the latest iOS version and try to back up files again.
However, the above tips do not always work. To back up your iOS data efficiently, you can try the best iCloud backup alternative app - Coolmuster iOS Assistant to back up everything on iPhone in minutes. This professional iPhone backup tool enables you to back up and restore contacts, messages, photos, videos, music, notes, bookmarks, eBooks, calendars, user apps, and other files on computer. Moreover, you can delete, edit, and add contacts, bookmarks and more files on computer directly.
Most importantly, it is widely compatible with all generations of iPhone, iPad, and iPod (iOS 14 included), including iPhone 12/SE (2nd generation)/11/11 Pro/11 Pro Max/XS Max/XS/XR/X/8/8 Plus/7 Plus/7/SE (1st generation)/6S Plus/6S/6/6 Plus/5S/5C/5/4S/4, etc.
Three steps to back up everything on iOS devices:
Notes: Ensure that iTunes or Music can detect your iOS device, or the program will fail to detect your device.
1. Install Coolmuster iOS Assistant on your computer.
2. Launch this program and connect your iPhone to the computer via a USB cable. The program will automatically detect your device. Select the Trust option if a window pops up on your iPhone. After that, click the Continue option on this program to move on.
3. Once the program recognizes your device, all iPhone data will be listed on this program. To back up everything on iPhone in one click, you can click the Super Toolkit on the top > Hit the iTunes Backup & Restore > Select the Backup option > Choose your device from the drop-down menu and decide a location on your computer to save files > Tap the OK option to start to back up all iPhone data.
It is troublesome when iCloud backup taking forever occurs. To successfully fix this problem, 7 easy ways are provided in this article. If those tricks cannot troubleshoot it, you can turn to Coolmuster iOS Assistant, which safely and quickly backs up everything on your iPhone with one click. You can have a try.
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