Read iOS backup on Mac or PC - how it works

A backup is made every time you sync your iOS device to your PC or Mac. This practical tip shows you how to read this.

Read out iOS backup on PC

With the "iPhone Backup Extractor" you have a program at hand with which you can read out your backups on both the PC and the Mac. Even if you have lost your device or the device is unusable, you can still access your data.

1. After starting the program, you must first select a backup and enter the password with which you encrypted the backup.
2. Now you can choose which data should be extracted. Photos, contacts, SMS, What's App, etc.
3. If you selected one of the options, enter a folder in the next step into which the backup should be moved. In Expert Mode you can also select individual files to be decrypted.
4. After a short time, the folder in which the files were extracted opens. Most files, such as contacts, are now in a format that you cannot open on your PC or Mac. Therefore "iPhone Backup Extractor" offers the possibility to convert such formats into the CSV format, which you can open with Excel.
5. To do this, go to "Files" in the main menu and select what you want to convert to CSV, i.e. contacts, calendar, SMS or other files.
6. Now you have to navigate to the folder where you extracted the files and double-click to select the files. If you now specify in which folder the converted files should be saved, you can finally view them.

In the free version offered, you can unfortunately only convert two files from one folder at a time. Unfortunately, this is quite tedious, for example if you want to read a lot of pictures. You can purchase a license to read your data without barriers on the manufacturer's website for around $ 25. Even with alternative programs, you can often only extract properly if you buy a license. Here we show you whether it is better to create a backup using iTunes or iCloud.