Backup for Iphone 4S

[mleiser]

Does anyone know of a backup (cloud preferred) that will back up the Iphone 4s INCLUDING all the notes? I've been using Outlook but it's a hit miss. Doesn't always back it all up. I'd love to go to the cloud but haven't found anyone that does it. My notes are very important to me. Any help would be nice. Thanks. Mike

[Sparkee]

What about Apple's iCloud?

It does keep a copy of your Notes if you set up Mail on iCloud. At best it does not provide a true back up of your data though. Your data on the iPhone should still sync with an app on a computer which is also backed up regularly. Even with iCloud I would recomend syncing it with Outlook on the computer as well. You can also set your iPhone up to sync notes with GMail, but the same problem exist here as well. For a true back up you would also need to set it up to sync up with Outlook on your computer and it's back ups.

The problem with most online sources for mobile devices is there is no incremental back up so you can not go back in time to retrieve lost data. If you deleted or lost your notes then synced with iCloud or Google they are also deleted there as well.

[mleiser]

The problem is, I have been syncing with Itunes to Outlook. But very often, it just goes through the process but doesn't do the full update. So the last notes that I wrote won't be backed up after a sync. I don't understand why. I do a repeat sync and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. Now it just stopped working. Again, it does go through the process but at the end, it's just not working. Any ideas on that?
Mike

[rockmyplimsoul]

Syncing to Outlook through iTunes is a hit or miss proposition. You're far better off either using the built-in Note application, which is backed up to your computer or iCloud, or use some other cloud-based app (like Google Drive). The Outlook/ iTunes marriage seems to not be the happiest of relationships.

[peterthomas]

I appreciate the idea of going for third party cloud service like box, googledrive or dropbox whatever may suite you! I hope that would be more secure for you!

[mleiser]

Thanks for the response. Idrive only backs up new notes and I have tons of old notes. Does this google drive actually back up the notes? I saw a number of cloud backups but they don't.

[rockmyplimsoul]

If you're using the Notes application on your iPhone, then your notes are backed up each time you backup your iPhone. If you ever have to Restore your iPhone you can recover these notes by reloading your backup.

But it sounds like what you're looking for is not just a backup, but a synchronization to allow you to view your notes from your computer and/or other devices. Is that correct? Having your notes available somewhere other than your iPhone is sort of a backup, but it's much more than just a backup.

If that's what you're after, and if you have these notes already in your Notes app and/or Outlook, there's nothing that's going to magically make your existing notes available in any cloud storage for viewing outside of your iPhone. You can have new notes from the Notes app sync to your iCloud, Yahoo, or Google account, but existing notes will be stuck just on your iPhone (or Outlook).

To make your existing notes available on iCloud, Yahoo, or GMail, you'd first need to link your Notes app on your iPhone to one or more of these accounts. Then you'd have to copy and re-paste each note as a new note to push it to one of these accounts. However, with the iOS Notes app I don't think you can make changes to the note from your computer and push the changes to your iPhone (i.e. I think it is a one-way transfer).

But Google Drive (formerly Google Documents) is bi-directional, meaning that you can edit documents in your Drive account from either your iPhone or computer and the changes would get pushed out to anything linked to your Drive account. But again, to get your existing Notes into Drive, you'd have to copy and paste each note into a new Drive document.

Hope that helps!

[mleiser]

I'm a little lost here. What is this "Drive" account you are talking about? I have my iphone and on my iphone I have Notes (and contacts, etc.). I want to have my notes backed up. For example, say I have a note titled First, another titled Second, etc. At night I want my two notes - First and Second backup up somewhere (hopefully encrpted as well). Then I do a change to the note called First on my Iphone. Then I create a note called Third. Then I update my note called Second. That night I want my three notes backed up, obviously with all the changes and newly created notes. Then on day I delete my note called Second from my iphone, by mistake. I need to get it back. I want to go to my Backup place and pick up my last backup of the note called Second and have it restored to my phone. The fact is I have hundreds of notes. So, can I do this? Icloud claims only new notes will be backed up. Google Drive has no contact section so I can't even ask them. I am not interested in modifying a note on my computer and having it sync with my phone. I just want the ability to get a particular note, or all of them, restored to my iphone, and it would be nice if I can print them out from the computer. Does any of this make any sense? Is there anything that can do that?

[rockmyplimsoul]

Originally Posted by mleiser

I'm a little lost here. What is this "Drive" account you are talking about?

I'm talking about Google Drive, an optional cloud storage account where conceivably you could store your notes instead of using the Note application. But for your purpose, the built-in Notes app is fine.

Originally Posted by mleiser

I want to have my notes backed up.

As I said above, this occurs automatically with every backup you do for your iPhone. An iPhone backup is initiated each time you re-sync with your computer, or if you decide to backup to iCloud rather than your computer this happens automatically each day whenever your iPhone is on wi-fi, with external power, and the screen locked (or you can manually initiate an iCloud backup, it's up to you).

Originally Posted by mleiser

Then on day I delete my note called Second from my iphone, by mistake. I need to get it back. I want to go to my Backup place and pick up my last backup of the note called Second and have it restored to my phone.

Simply connect your iPhone to your home computer and restore your backup. You can do this either by initiating a full Restore (which erases the iPhone) followed by selecting your last backup, or simply right-click on your iPhone's name in iTunes and select "Restore from backup" (which does the same thing, but does not erase everything as a full Restore does).

Originally Posted by mleiser

I am not interested in modifying a note on my computer and having it sync with my phone.

Then the built-in Notes app on your iPhone is fine.

Originally Posted by mleiser

...and it would be nice if I can print them out from the computer.

Since you can't read your iPhone backup file, to do this you can link your Notes app to a particular e-mail account you have. Once you do that, new notes get sent to your e-mail account (they typically go into a "Notes" folder) and you can then print them. But existing notes won't sync to your e-mail, so you'd have to copy and paste each note as a new note to be able to do this. Alternatively, if you have a printer that is capable of wi-fi printing directly from your iPhone, you could print your notes that way.