Transferring information from an iPhone 4 to iPad 14

kah22

I’m looking for some advice from anyone who has experience of transferring information from a very old iPhone.

I have an iPhone 4, and I’m moving to an iPhone 14 Pro. My main concern is, if possible, making sure that I don’t lose any of the information that is still on the iPhone 4.

While most of what is on my other phone there are some personal item one the iPhone 4, that I would hope to hold on to.

I realise the iPhone 4 is now very old, left unloved over the years, but I’m wondering what is actually possible and, more importantly, what is the safest way to go about it all I have is my ipad

Has anyone successfully transferred information from an iPhone 4 to a much newer iPhone?

Any advice would be very welcome.

oldernonethewiser

What iOS is the older phone using?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/102659

Has the phone been backed to iCloud?

ididgetwhereiamtoday

I doubt an iPhone 4 will be able to backup to the cloud.

oldernonethewiser

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82129051#Comment_82129051

Good point, it would need to be backed up to a local computer via iTunes.

Glad

I wouldn't start doing anything to the iPhone 4 until you're absolutely sure the things you want to keep are safely copied somewhere.

It is too old to use the normal direct iPhone-to-iPhone Quick Start method, but if the iPhone 4 will still connect to WiFi and iCloud, I'd first see whether you can make a fresh iCloud backup of it.

You can then set up the iPhone 14 Pro and choose to restore from that iCloud backup. Apple does support restoring an older backup to a newer iPhone, although obviously some very old apps themselves may no longer work on the new phone. So start by checking if you can do this, then saving everything and then moving it.

Also as you only have an iPad and not a computer, I'd separately save anything particularly precious such as photos, notes or documents to iCloud or the iPad if you can, rather than relying entirely on one backup.

Most importantly, don't erase, reset, trade in or otherwise fiddle with the iPhone 4 afterwards until you've checked that everything important has made it across