Fixed: 8 Solutions to iPhone Backup Session Failed

If iTunes could not backup or restore the iPhone because the backup session failed, you could follow the passage to solve iTunes issue.

Lena

By Lena / Updated on May 18, 2023

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iPhone Backup Session Failed

have backed up my iPhone 8 to computer with iTunes and recently I want restore my iPhone 7 from that backup. I select that backup in iTunes but it says iTunes could not restore the iPhone because the backup session failed. What should I do?

- Question from Apple Community

iTunes could help you create a full iPhone backup with one click. That backup could be used to restore this iPhone, another iPhone or iPad. After restoration, the target device would be totally replaced with the data from that backup. It is a good way to save iPhone data, refresh your system or repair some system issue with iTunes.

iTunes would often give you a great experience but own to the feature of iOS, sometimes it would also disappoint you. The task might be shut up when you backup or restore iPhone with iTunes because iPhone backup session failed. The following content would tell you how to fix it when iPhone is not backing up to computer.

iPhone Backup Session Failed

Why iPhone backup session failed?

Your backup or restoration might fail for a bad connection or incompatibility. iOS is very strict even to the software developed by Apple. If iTunes couldn’t get the permission from you, the session would fail in halfway.

iTunes would create an incremental backup based on your old backup. The session would often fail if you don’t check Encrypt this backup. The conflict between the two backups would cause the failure of the session.

Your iPhone should be up to date. If you create a backup of iOS 12 but want to restore that backup to an iPhone running iOS 11, the session would often fail.

If your iPhone has been jailbroken, the backup session would fail more likely. You might need to use another tool to backup your iPhone.

8 Solutions to the problem that iPhone backup failed

Since you have known the problem might be caused by a bad connection or incompatibility, you could use the 8 methods to troubleshoot it and try iTunes again every time you use one method. Before you try any method, you should restart iPhone and computer to refresh the system.

#1 Change USB cable and ports

The first thing you should check is the physical connection. The USB cable should be premium and the USB port on computer should be tight. Try another USB cable and clear the USB port to ensure the physical connection is established.

Tip: The original lightning cable is preferred.

#2 Disable firewall and Antivirus

Your firewall and antivirus might wrongly regard your iPhone as a threat to computer and block the connection. Temporarily disable firewall and antivirus to ensure iTunes could read and write the iPhone.

#3 Update driver

Apple Mobile Device USB driver is necessary to connect iPhone to computer. Sometimes it needs to be updated. Right-click the Start button on desktop > select Device Manager >expand the Portable Devices Section > right-click on the device name > click Update driver > select "Search automatically for updated driver software."

Update Apple Driver

#4 Update iTunes and iOS

You should update the software, especially iOS. As mentioned in the passage, if the target iPhone runs old iOS, it would not be compatible with that backup copy.

#5 Encrypt this backup

If you already have an encrypted backup of this iPhone on computer, your next backup should be encrypted, too.

#6 Delete old backups

If you really don’t want to encrypted the backup this time, you should remove the previous backup in iTunes > Edit > Preferences > Devices and try again. If you are not sure to delete that backup, read the following method.

#7 Extract iTunes backup

If the backup session still failed, that backup might be corrupt. You could use iTunes backup extractor to see what’s in it and keep the data you want so you could safely delete that backup. More info: Top 3 Free iPhone Backup Extractors [2023]

Extract iTunes backup

#8 Restore from iCloud

If you have created an iCloud backup on iPhone, you could restore iPhone from that iCloud backup. Before you do that, you should know the difference between iCloud backup vs iTunes backup.

Use iTunes alternative to avoid that iPhone backup session failed

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iTunes is not so professional as iPhone backup tool. You need an iTunes alternative to save your iPhone. FoneTool is a free professional iPhone backup software that allows your to easily and quickly backup iPhone photos, videos, music, contacts, and messages to computer.

You could backup your iPhone in 3 steps. FoneTool allows you to preview and select files on your iPhone so you could decide to backup what’s on your iPhone. Managing your backup would always be very easy by viewing or positioning backup copy by one click. It supports most versions of iOS including the latest iOS 13.

Click Start Backup

Conclusion

iTunes might tell you that iTunes could not backup/restore the iPhone because the backup session failed. This problem could be caused by bad connection or incompatibility. You should use the 8 methods in this passage to keep backing up or restoring your iPhone. To avoid the problem happening again, you could use FoneTool to easily and safely backup and restore your iPhone. If this passage solves your problem, you could share it to help more people.