You must find your iPhone backup corrupt when you are trying to restore the backup. iTunes says nothing but “iTunes could not restore the iPhone because the backup was corrupt”.
There could be more than one reason why your iPhone backup is corrupt. Some most common causes include:
- The backup process got interrupted.
- The backup file was manually moved or renamed.
- Your hard drive has bad clusters.
- Your backup was saved to a volume that has bad sectors.
- …and the list may go on.
Regardless of the culprit factor, there are a couple of proven solutions that will be discussed in the sections under this title. Apart from this, if you want a piece of important information back from a corrupt backup, you can try a few external remedies, which you will learn about while going through the methods discussed here.
How to Fix “iPhone Backup Corrupt” Error
When you launch iTunes and connect your iPhone to the computer, if you get a message box telling you that “iTunes could not restore the iPhone because the backup was corrupt”, the following fixes can help you get things back on track.
1. Update iTunes
An outdated iTunes version might not be compatible with the iOS that your iPhone has. Because of this, the application may not be able to communicate with your device properly, and as a result, it fails to restore the backup and indicate “iPhone backup corrupt” error. Therefore, you must check and update iTunes to the latest version.
Note: Usually, iTunes automatically checks for updates each time you launch it. If it doesn’t, you can go through the following steps. If you are using Finder on Mac, you have to update macOS to update Finder.
- Launch iTunes.
- Go to the Help menu from the menu bar at the top.
- Click Check for Updates.
- Follow the instructions from there to download and install the latest iTunes updates.
- Restart your computer.
- Try restoring your iPhone again.
2. Update Your iPhone
As with iTunes, if your iPhone is running on an older iOS version, the communication between the application and your phone may be hampered and you may get the “iPhone backup corrupt” error. The best way to fix this is by updating iPhone to the latest iOS version. You can follow the steps given below to do so.
- Connect your iPhone to a power supply.
- Ensure that the phone’s battery is at least 50% charged.
- Connect the iPhone to a high-speed and stable Wi-Fi network.
- Go to Settings.
- Tap General.
- Tap Software Update.
- Wait while your iPhone checks for any available updates.
- Tap Download and Install from the bottom of the description of the new iOS version.
- Wait while the phone downloads and installs the latest iOS and restarts.
- Try restoring from the backup again.
3. Remove Old Backup and Back Up Again
If the iPhone backup is corrupt, one of the obvious solutions is to move the faulty backup files to another location or get rid of them altogether, then create a new backup, and try restoring your phone again. Although you must dig deep into the system files to do the manual shift or removal, every step is worth it. The procedure is explained below.
Move or Delete an Existing Backup
On any Windows PC, copy and paste the C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup path in the address bar of the Windows Explorer/File Explorer window.
Note:
- On Windows XP, use the C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup path instead. If you have installed Windows XP on a different volume, replace C:\ with that drive letter.
- Replace <username> with the name of the user account you are logged in to Windows with.、
If you’re a Mac user, you can type the ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup path in Spotlight.
Move the backup subdirectory in the Backup folder to another volume, USB stick, or an external hard drive, or press Delete on your keyboard to remove the backup files.
Back Up Your iPhone
- Launch iTunes.
- Use the genuine Lightning Cable to connect your iPhone to the PC.
- Wait while iTunes detects your phone.
- Click the Phone icon from the top-center of the interface.
- From the right window, click to select the This Computer radio button under the Automatically Back Up column of the Backups section.
- Uncheck the Encrypt local backup box.
- Click Back Up Now from the Manually Back Up and Restore column.
- Click Don’t Encrypt when the confirmation box appears.
- Wait while iTunes backs up your iPhone.
Restore iPhone from the New Backup
- Use the method explained here to turn off Find My iPhone on your iPhone
- Use the procedure explained in the previous part to get to your iPhone’s Summary window in iTunes.
- Click Restore Backup from the Manually Back Up and Restore column under the Backups section in the right window.
- When the Restore From Backup box appears, choose the latest backup instance from the iPhone Name list.
- Click Restore.
- Wait while iTunes restores the backup to your iPhone.
- Continue using your phone normally.
4. Use a Third-Party Tool to Fix the Corrupt iPhone Backup
If the iPhone backup corrupt file has important data that you cannot afford to lose, it wouldn’t be wise to delete the files. Instead, you can try to repair the copy using a third-party program and then restore your iPhone from the backup.
A tool that is usually used for this purpose is Decipher Backup Repair by Decipher Tools, which you can download from the https://deciphertools.com/decipher-backup-repair.html link. The application is compatible with both Windows and Mac platforms and can do the following:
- Detect and repair iOS backups created using iTunes.
- Support encrypted backup.
- Fix ‘iTunes could not restore because the backup was corrupt’, iTunes could not restore the iPhone because an error occurred while reading from or writing to the iPhone’, ‘iTunes could not restore the iPhone because an error occurred’, and so on.
- Furthermore, Decipher Backup Repair is compatible with iOS 16 and can repair backups for almost all models of iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
5. Use a Tool to Extract Data from the Corrupt iPhone Backup
If you want to recover some specific data from a corrupt backup, you need a tool that can look into the backup regardless of its state, read the contents, and extract the files that you want. The program that can do all these tasks with a few mouse clicks is iMobie PhoneRescue. You can download PhoneResuce for your Windows or Mac computer. Here are some of its features:
- Extract what you want from your iTunes backup.
- Recover deleted data from your iPhone.
- Fix almost all iOS-related issues.
- Remove the lock screen from your iPhone or iPad without any hassle.
- Remove Screen Time passcode and restrictions.
- PhoneRescue is compatible with iOS 16 and almost all iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch models.
Although PhoneRescue has so many features, when you got the “iPhone backup corrupt” problem, you only need to choose the “Recover from Backup” function. PhoneRescue will scan your iTunes backup and display the data found in the backup. You can choose to restore the data to iPhone or export it to your computer.
Conclusion
Having your iPhone backup corrupt is not an uncommon issue as many people face the situation now and then. The point is, how you deal with it when your copy of iTunes shows this error. If the solutions that Apple suggests are not effective, you will need the help of other tools. if you want some specific content from a faulty backup, you must rely on a third-party tool that can repair the entire corrupt file or a tool that can extract the data that it has.
