Need to back up everything from lost old phone to even older backup phone

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Need to back up everything from lost old phone to even older backup phone

So I stupidly lost an iPhone 13. However, I do have my backup 10 with me. No, the 13 wasn’t on FindMy and was essentially a WhatsApp unit with all of my apps on. I’ve re-entered AppleID etc on 10, but how do I now get as MUCH as possible onto the 10 from the lost 13? Do I go to setup and erase/start again? Can I get pics etc back? Can I get apps back with logins to the 10? Thank you for your kind help, and I’m a war journalist if that goes any way towards explaining the slightly chaotic approach.

iPhone 13 Pro Max, iOS 18

Posted on Oct 5, 2025 11:43 AM

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Answer 1

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sberman

Level 10

272,220 points

Oct 5, 2025 1:24 PM in response to MarkLawH

MarkLawH wrote:

how do I now get as MUCH as possible onto the [10] iPhone X from the lost 13?

You cannot retrieve information from a lost device. However, hopefully since that information was important to you, you backed up the iPhone 13 before it was lost.

In your case, even if you performed iOS backups from the iPhone 13 before losing it (as hopefully you did), you have an additional issue. The iPhone X, released by Apple in 2017, is too old to use a current iOS version. iOS backups can only be restored to devices running an iOS version greater than or equal to the one used to create the backup.

So here's the bottom line:

Hopefully you backed up the iPhone 13. If so, restore it to a device running a current iOS version:

Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup - Apple Support

Additional information from the iPhone X may be retrieved if it's stored in some common area (e.g., iCloud) that could be accessed from either device.

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