How to back up your iPhone to your Mac or PC and avoid the cloud

If you’re an iPhone user who is steadfast about retaining your privacy, you’re probably not very happy about the recent news that Apple is retaining the ability to decrypt most of what’s in an iCloud backup at the request of government entities, such as the FBI. In that case, you may want to pay attention to the adage that sometimes the best ways are the old ways. While it’s more convenient to use iCloud to back up your phone, you can back up your iPhone to your Mac or Windows computer and retain full control of your data backups. If you’ve always backed up via iCloud, or if you haven’t done a local backup in a while, you might be able to use a refresher course.

Here’s how you do it. If you’re using Finder, open a Finder window (by either clicking on the Finder icon in your dock or selecting “File” > “New Finder Window” in the top Finder menu bar), and look for your iPhone in the left-hand menu under “Locations. ” If you need to restore your backup, just go to the same page and click on “Restore Backup... ” Note that you can either manually back up your iPhone, or you can also have it automatically back up each time you connect it to your computer.

Look for “Options” just below the “Backups” section, and select “Automatically sync when this iPhone is connected. ” Once you’ve set up your backup to your computer, you probably want to delete any backups you’ve made to iCloud. To do this on your Mac: To do this on your iPhone: One more thing: dealing with iMessage without saving your data to iCloud can get a bit complicated, partly because iMessage uses end-to-end encryption (which means that it needs a key at either end) and partly because iMessage can also use Messages for iCloud, the feature that allows for syncing iMessage between multiple Mac or iOS devices with the same account. We consulted with Apple, and this is basically how it works: Update January 24th, 2020, 10:37AM ET: This article has been updated to clarify how to open a Finder window.

Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. For more information, see our ethics policy.