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[SOLVED] iCloud Backup Taking Forever? 8 Easy Ways Can Fix It

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"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.

icloud backup taking forever

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)

Part 1. FAQs You May Concern before Fixing iCloud Backup Taking Forever

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.

1. What does iCloud backup include?

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:

  • App data
  • Device settings
  • Apple Watch Backups
  • HomeKit configuration and data
  • The screen display and app layout
  • Photos, music, and videos from your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
  • iMessage, SMS, MMS, and messages from instant messaging apps, like WhatsApp, Facebook, etc.
  • ringtones
  • call logs
  • Visual voicemail (same SIM card needed)
  • Health app files
  • Purchased music, movies, TV shows, eBooks, and apps from your iOS device

icloud backup

2. How long should it take to back up my iPhone normally?

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:

  • Camera Roll photos and videos
  • iPhone settings for Phone Favorites, Wallpaper, Mail, Contacts, and Calendar accounts
  • App data
  • Ringtones
  • Visual voicemail
  • Home screen and app organization
  • iMessage, SMS, and MMS messages

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?

3. Why is my iCloud backup taking so long?

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:

  1. Too many data-hog apps on your iPhone.
  2. A lot of photos, videos, and audio files on your iPhone.
  3. Your iPhone is brand new, and you back it up for the first time.
  4. You have upgraded the iOS version, and the new backup is incompatible with the existing backups in your iCloud account.
  5. You are doing pretty much anything else, for example, playing online games, while backing up hundreds of gigabytes of information to iCloud.
  6. Your iPhone is running on ADSL rather than a fiber-optic connection, much slower to upload and download files.

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.

Part 2. How to Fix iCloud Backup Taking Forever?

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.

#1 Restart iPhone

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.

#2 Clean unnecessary files to free up more phone internal memory storage

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.

clear files to fix icloud backup taking forever issue

#3 Check Internet connection

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.

#4 Turn off or disable unused apps from your iPhone

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.

disable unused apps to fix icloud backup taking forever

#5 Delete older iCloud backups

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.

delete icloud backups to fix icloud backup taking forever issue

#6 Back up your iPhone frequently

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.

#7 Update the iOS version

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.

Part 3. Try iCloud Backup Alternative to Backup iPhone in Minutes (Recommended)

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 16 included), including iPhone 14/13/12/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.

coolmuster ios assistant windows versioncoolmuster ios assistant mac version

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.

install coolmuter 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.

connect iphone to computer before backup

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.

an alternative way to back up ios data safely and fastly with coolmuster ios assistant

Wrapping Up

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.

If you find this article helpful, you can share it to let more people see it, and if you have any queries, please leave a comment below.

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