How to Fix iPhone Backup Corrupt or Not Compatible in 5 Ways?

iPhone Backup Corrupted

I'm restoring my iPhone 8 from iTunes backup, but got the message that iPhone backup is corrupted. How can I fix corrupted iPhone backup?

- Question from Apple Community

In recent years, people have increasingly realized the importance of data security. You could leave a copy of your iPhone on computer and it would be very helpful when you want to retrieve data, repair a disabled iPhone, or transfer data to a new iPhone.

iTunes is a powerful software. It would copy nearly the whole device to computer and help you to completely restore your iPhone when needed. Although it is a premium software designed by Apple, sometimes you might have problems like iTunes backup corrupt when you backup or restore iPhone.

Both hardware and software could lead to a corrupt iPhone backup. You could follow the suggestions below to find out why it happens and troubleshoot the problem.

Solution 1. Restart iPhone and computer

"Hello IT, have you tried turning it off and on again?" You might have heard the words from the IT Crowd. It sounds funny but actually solves most of the IT problems.

Something might be wrong behind the screen or some paths could not be connected. Rebooting your computer and iPhone could help rebuild the path so that you would find iTunes works perfectly again.

Solution 2. Update iOS to the latest version

Apple frequently updates its iOS and software so that compatibility could be the problem. If you use iTunes to restore an iPhone running the previous iOS from the latest backup with iTunes, it's hard to transfer all the settings and app data.

Sometimes you might see the prompt that iTunes could not restore the iPhone because the backup was not compatible you must update the iPhone so update your iPhone and iTunes before trying again.

Solution 3. Check encrypt local backup

If you are backing up iPhone, try checking Encrypt local backup or not. That depends on whether your former backup was encrypted. It means you have different attitudes to the privacy of iPhone data, but iTunes wants to admit only one so iPhone backup corrupt happens.

Solution 4. Delete old backup

Sometimes your previous backup would interface the performance of iTunes, so you can delete the useless backup in iTunes > Edit > Preference and try again.

Go to C:\Users\[PC name]\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup to check whether there is an unreadable iTunes backup.

Solution 5. Repair corrupted iTunes backup or extract content from it

What to do if you still want to use the old iTunes backup after the possible solutions failed? You could have 2 ways to restore your iPhone from that backup: repair corrupt iTunes backup and then restore iPhone with iTunes, or extract content from that corrupt backup and recover them to your iPhone with third-party software.

How to repair corrupted iTunes backup?

You could use third-party software to repair your iTunes backup. Decipher Backup Repair would help you to fix corrupt iPhone backup with its years’ experience. Follow the steps below to repair your iPhone backup.

Step 1. Download and launch Decipher Backup Repair. Select your corrupt iPhone backup.

Step 2. Click on the button “Repair it” and your it would start repairing.

Step 3. Preview the list of issues to your backup then press "Next".

Step 4. Wait until you see the "Time to Restore" screen with the iTunes instructions.

Step 5. Open iTunes, enter the Summary of your phone and click “Restore Backup”.

Step 6. Select the Decipher Repaired Backup and click Restore.

Note:
Decipher Backup Repair is powerful while it is not free. You need to pay for it before fixing iTunes backup.

How to extract content from the corrupt iPhone backup?

You need an iPhone backup extractor to view the data in iTunes backup and recover the data you want to your iPhone. However, these extractors are not free, either.

Purchase the software, connect iPhone to computer with USB cable, scan the corrupt iPhone backup, select the data you want, and export data to your iPhone or PC.

Alternative way to backup iPhone safely

If the problem is still here, you can turn to another popular backup tool-FoneTool. With this tool, you can easily create a local backup on your computer/external drive. And it allows you to perform plenty of tasks, like transferring data between iPhone and computer, migrating data from iPhone to iPhone.

It offers 2 ways of backup to protect your iPhone:
• Full Backup: It will completely backup your iPhone just like iTunes. And it also supports importing iTunes backup.
•  Custom Backup: If you don't want to backup all data on your iPhone, the "Custom Backup" feature enables you to save contacts, messages, videos, music, music, on your PC.

It could be used to backup most models of iPhone from iPhone 4 to iPhone 14 and would be perfectly compatible with the latest iOS 15. Now you can click the download button to install this tool, and follow the steps below to see how to use it.

Step 1. Connect your iPhone with your computer, and run FoneTool. Click "Phone Backup" on the left pan. Choose "Full Backup" or "Selective Backup". Here we choose "Full Backup".

Step 2. If you want to backup some private data, please enable the backup encryption. Then click "Start Backup".

Then wait for the process to get finished. To restore the full backup image. Click "Full Restore" on the program.

Conclusion

This passage gives you 5 ways to fix the issue iPhone backup corrupt. You will easily know the reason why it appears and how to use the corrupt backup. To avoid that situation, you could use FoneTool to safely backup your iPhone and view your backup.

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