
Your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch backups only include information and settings stored on your device. They do not include information already stored in iCloud such as Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, Notes, Reminders, Voice Memos 4, Messages in iCloud, iCloud Photos, and shared photo s. Some information is not included in an iCloud backup but can be added to iCloud and shared across multiple devices like Mail, Health data, call history, and files you store in iCloud Drive.ġ.
Visual Voicemail password (requires the SIM card that was in use during backup). Purchase history from Apple services, like your music, movies, TV shows, apps, and books 3.
Photos and videos on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch 2. iMessage, text (SMS), and MMS messages 2. Updated December 2020: Updated for macOS Big Sur. Questions about the process to back up Mac contacts? Be sure to check out our latest recommendations before making a decision. Looking for a new Mac?Īs Apple adds new Macs to its lineup, iMore adjusts our yearly recommendations. Let me repeat that for clarity: when importing a dot-abbu package, there is no option to merge with your existing data. If you try to open an ".abbu" package in the OS X Contacts app, it will ask you if you want to replace your current contacts database with contents of ".abbu". The latter, however, will replace your entire contacts. Moving forward, the former, when imported, will allow you to merge information with an existing contact. The Export vCard choice only includes the selected contacts from the Contacts.app, while selecting Contacts Archive would include an export of all of your contacts. The main points are worth repeating here since the execution remains the same even as OS X became macOS later that year. In 2016, MacStories did a great job explaining the differences between saving contacts as a vCard or archive and how the choice you select could affect a future import.