Do yourself a favor! How to Back up your iPhone

We all know someone who has been through it; losing all their precious phone data. Irreplaceable memories, phone contacts, and more all lost because their phone data was not backed up. Backing up your iPhone is like having insurance just in case an accident happens. If you do end up with a broken phone, at least you can minimize the damage by having a copy of your iPhone backed up to the computer. That way when you get a new phone, all of your preferences, photos, and contacts can be uploaded back onto the device! Here is how you can easily back up your iPhone using iTunes.

Here are some things you will need:

• your iPhone
• an iPhone cable
• a computer with iTunes

If you do not have iTunes on your computer, you can download it here.

1. Open iTunes on your computer. You should be already logged into your Apple account.
2. Plug your iPhone cable into your computer, and into your iPhone.  Make sure that your iPhone is already on and unlocked if you have a passcode on your phone.
3. If you get a pop up asking whether or not to trust the computer, select "trust". This will allow your computer to access your iPhone and its information.
4. When your iPhone pops up on iTunes, it means the computer recognizes you have plugged in the device.
5. Select your device and make sure you are in the Summary tab.
6. Scroll down and select "this computer" and then "back up now".
7. Wait for your device to complete the backup process.

Here is a helpful video to guide you through the process. Please note that the video talks about extra things like encryption, which are not necessary to make a back up of your device. You can safely skip these steps.

Congratulations, your backup is complete! You now have safely stored a copy of your iPhone to your computer using iTunes. If you ever need to use this backup, plug in your new device and select "restore from backup". From there, you will be able to select the most recent backup and upload it to your device.