Need to restore backups from 13 mini back to reactivated SE

You can’t, but if you synced data to iCloud then the synced data should replicate on all devices.

On the SE go to Settings/[your name]/iCloud and turn on the switch for Messages, and wait for it to sync. Then restore the mini backup to the SE, then when you turn the sync switch on it should restore the recent messages.

No guarantees, but it should work.

To be safe back up the SE first, so you can restore it if I’m wrong.

SF Alley Cat wrote:

Lawrence thanks for the response.

The backups are different in iCloud.

The current backup on my SE phone is only 3 GB but the last backup from the Mini is 19 GB.

My preference would be to tell my SE phone to use the 19 GB backup, not the 3 GB backup it is currently using. Can I at least do that?

When you restore a backup you can choose which backup you want to use.

But I was talking about iCloud Sync, not iCloud Backup. iCloud+ has 2 independent functions. iCloud backups, and iCloud sync. It’s confusing because they both have the same name prefix. But they have no connection with each other. Go to Settings/[your name]/iCloud. You will see a bunch of switches (with iOS 16 or later also tap Show All). When you turn on a switch that data type will sync to iCloud. If you do this on multiple devices that share an Apple ID the selected data will sync to all of those devices. 

You can also turn on iCloud Backups. This will back up your phone every night if the phone is plugged in, connected to Wi-Fi and locked.

But note that these are independent functions; anything that you sync by the first method will be excluded from the iCloud backups.