For many years backing up your iPhone was a pretty painful experience that involved cabling it up to a laptop or computer and sitting for hours while it slowly transferred your data over.

While that method is still available (albeit way, way faster), the massive spread of iCloud means that backing up your iPhone to ensure that you have a usable version you can roll back to is now super simple. Here's how to back up your iPhone.

How to backup iPhone using iCloud

The simplest and most modern solution, iCloud makes it pretty easy to get a backup of your iPhone that updates frequently.

Setting up the system is easy - just use the steps below.

  1. Open the Settings app
  2. Tap on your name at the top of the menu
  3. Tap on iCloud, then on iCloud Backup
  4. Tap on Back Up Now to start a backup manually

You'll also see that there is a setting called Back Up This iPhone - ensuring that this is turned on means that your phone will start keeping a rolling backup that it uploads in the background while charging and connected to Wi-Fi (although you can allow it to use mobile data too).

You can also see a list of your device backups and can check when the last backup occurred and how much of your cloud storage allowance it's taking up.

How to backup your iPhone on Mac

If you prefer the old way of doing things (and don't want to pay for a cloud storage system moving forward), you can very much still do things old-school.

If you're on a Mac, follow the steps below to manually back your iPhone up. The steps below apply to Mac devices using the latest version of MacOS.

  1. Connect your iPhone to your Mac using its charging cable
  2. Select your iPhone from the Finder sidebar when it appears
  3. On the Finder window, select General
  4. Click on Back up all of the data on your iPhone to this Mac
  5. Choose whether you'd like to encrypt the backup with a password
  6. Click on Back Up Now to begin the process

Once the process is complete, you've got a local backup that you can use in the event you need to reset your iPhone at any point. To update the backup, connect your iPhone back to your computer and run it through again.

How to backup your iPhone on a PC

To run a backup on your PC you'll need to install the latest version of iTunes, so do that before you get started, then follow these steps.

  1. Connect your iPhone to your PC using a cable
  2. In the iTunes app, click the iPhone button at the top-left of the window
  3. Click Summary
  4. Click Back Up Now
  5. Choose whether to encrypt the backup with a password

Once you wait for the process to complete, you'll have your backup ready for when you need it.