“My phone won’t turn on.”
If you’ve ever said those five words about your phone, you know they s-t-i-n-k. Hahaha! A couple of weeks ago now, my phone randomly went into this loop where the apple logo would come on over and over and over, but wouldn’t turn on!
Out of pure desperation and fear of losing all of my pictures, videos, voice memos, apps, and TEXTS, {ohhh, I’ve had to wait a little bit to talk about it because it literally made me half way sick and half way sad! Haha!} I downloaded a bunch of programs to try to get my phone out of the recovery mode loop. There was some, not a lot, of info on it, and as embarrassed as I am to admit this, I probably spent about $150 on programs that were supposed to help! Little did I know that besides spending days on end getting migraines staring at my computer screen, I had also paid to download viruses onto my computer! I felt like a total ding dong, so when I called a tech guy to consult with me on my phone/computer, he said I should bring it in. He couldn’t fix my phone, but helped clean up my computer and took a few viruses off it it, one of which was actually a serious one! One that I invited in and gave our money to. Insert “I’m an idiot face” emoji here.
Anyway…
“Wasn’t it backed up to iCloud?” is something I heard a lot. No. No it wasn’t. And I REALLLLLY regret that. Hahaha. Every time I went to do that, for some reason it failed! Now that I look back on it, I don’t think there was enough iCloud space to do all of my pictures, so I’ve since upgraded to more storage. Kind of not a fun way to learn a lesson, and there are definitely worse things, but being without a phone for a week is a little inconvenient in our day and age of raising kids, running businesses, and having our schedules attached to our phones. Even though many days I choose to go without using my phone, it feels like a different story when you CAN’T use it!
Determined to not let this blunder happen again without being a little bit prepared, I wanted to make sure I put the right systems in place to make sure my stuff is backed up in case another apple loop attacks or my phone takes a little swim. Is this resonating with anyone? Or am I alone in my phone-backup stupidity!? Hahah!
Either way, here’s what I found!:)
1. Upgrade cloud storage and let it back up when it’s “locked and connected to wi-fi.” {Still can’t believe I didn’t figure that out before, but hello, knowledge.}
2. Use a program that takes messages, voice memos, etc., off of your phone and keep them on an external hard drive. {But WAIT! External hard drive. That’s another curse word this week, because when I went to plug mine in, it said to back it up and format it, which erases everything. Um, the EHD IS my back up! Hahaha! So, now: Hi, I’m Sarah. I’m a paranoid freak about losing my data and now I back up my external hard drive on to another external hard drive. Twice. And I’m signing up for an online backup, too. Cue eye roll and laughing tears! Haha!}
3. Picture backups. Google Photos, DropBox, etc., etc., I think even Amazon has one now!? Whatever you choose, use it! And remind it to back up often! I was able to save a lot of pictures this way. Not all of them, and not my videos, but it saved some picture heartache!
There are lots of iPhone extractor programs, and the one I chose to use is called iExplorer. I had it before, about two years ago, but there is an updated version, so I needed to buy it again. In my opinion, it’s so worth it. I don’t know why texts and voicemails are sentimental to me, but they totally are! And voice memos are too, because it’s usually recording my kids’ little voices or ideas, or random other tid bits that probably mean nothing to anyone else except for me. But that’s okay. I like iExplorer because you buy it once and then can use it on a computer and plug all your devices into it, which is nice.
I hope that SOMETHING on here is useful, if nothing other than to provide a cautionary tale to the Mamas with cute kids who take lots of pictures… Back that stuff up. I hate thinking about the videos that I lost over the past several months! Boo! But we now know! Haha. My new nickname can be Queen Freak of All Things Backup, and I’ll own it, because I want that history saved! Hahah! All in all, I learned a lot {I should have learned this before, because it’s not the first time it’s happened! Haha!} I did get a new phone, and sometimes fresh starts are good with all that memory and data, but I’d rather start fresh with the old stuff backed up! Haha. Hope this helps!
XO
Sarah