Not everyone wants their data backed up in the cloud, and if you’re one of those people, we’ll show you how to keep your iPhone or iPad from automatically backing up to iCloud.
Why disable automatic iCloud backup for iPhone or iPad
There are a number of reasons why you may want to disable automatic iCloud backup, such as:
- Having security concerns about iCloud being hacked (even though this is highly unlikely, and you can encrypt your iCloud backups using the optional Advanced Data Protection feature)
- Having a slow Wi-Fi connection at home
- Having a capped internet data plan from your ISP
- Not having enough room in your iCloud storage
- You always set up devices as new
- iCloud backup fails, which results in annoying notifications in the Settings app
Stop iPhone or iPad from backing up to iCloud
- Open iOS Settings and tap your name at the top.
- Go to iCloud > iCloud Backup.
- Switch off the switch for Back Up This iPhone and tap Turn Off to confirm.
What happens after disabling iCloud backups
Now that you’ve disabled automatic back-ups to iCloud, the only time your device will be able to back up is when you plug it into your computer. Open Finder on a Mac or the Apple Devices app on a Windows PC to manually back up the phone to your computer.
For a lot of people, this might mean never, because I know plenty of friends who don’t even plug their devices into their computers anymore.
Of course, if you don’t want to back up your data to your computer either, then you may be interested in another of our tutorials for how to disable automatic backup to your computer when you plug your iOS device into your computer.
Keep in mind that having backups is a good idea because when things go wrong, you can always restore your iOS device to how it was before the problem arose. On the other hand, sometimes it’s nice not to clutter your computer or iCloud with data that you may never use and have the security of knowing that all your important personal data isn’t being uploaded to Apple’s servers.
Important: I recommend learning how to back up important iPhone data without a full device backup.
Delete the current iPhone backup file
After you’ve turned off iCloud backup, you can also delete the current backup file of your iPhone, which will free up significant iCloud space. To do that, tap the current backup on the iCloud Backup screen and hit Delete Backup.
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