iTunes backup, excluding photos?

[jntdroid]

Is there a way to do an iTunes backup without backing up photos?

I'm moving to an iPhone with less storage. This wouldn't be a problem at all, except my local photo library takes up 80% of my current storage and I can't seem to get it to leave more of it in iCloud. I've checked the options to maximize storage by uploading to iCloud, etc., but b/c there is enough storage on my current phone, and there's no way to force it to upload more (that I know of?), I can't seem to get around this.

So I was hoping there was a way to do an iTunes backup but leave the photos out of it completely. That way when I restore, the new phone will be linked to my iCloud photo library, but photos will originate 100% in the cloud, instead of from a backup.

Hopefully that makes sense. TIA!

 

[fg3_colton]

Is there a way to do an iTunes backup without backing up photos?

I'm moving to an iPhone with less storage. This wouldn't be a problem at all, except my local photo library takes up 80% of my current storage and I can't seem to get it to leave more of it in iCloud. I've checked the options to maximize storage by uploading to iCloud, etc., but b/c there is enough storage on my current phone, and there's no way to force it to upload more (that I know of?), I can't seem to get around this.

So I was hoping there was a way to do an iTunes backup but leave the photos out of it completely. That way when I restore, the new phone will be linked to my iCloud photo library, but photos will originate 100% in the cloud, instead of from a backup.

Hopefully that makes sense. TIA!

When you plug your phone into your computer. Click on the drop down arrow listing all the sections. Select photos and uncheck. It'll ask you to sync again to apply the setting.

 

[jntdroid]

This is what I see when I do that (attached)

 

[J. A.]

If you use iCloud Photo Library, iTunes will not backup pictures in the Photos app.

 

[jntdroid]

If you use iCloud Photo Library, iTunes will not backup pictures in the Photos app.

That's what I thought as well, but it clearly is, b/c when I do a restore of my iTunes backup, they're all there, local on my phone.

 

[J. A.]

They are synced by iCloud, that's why they appear again.

 

[fg3_colton]

That's what I thought as well, but it clearly is, b/c when I do a restore of my iTunes backup, they're all there, local on my phone.

Turn off iCloud photo sync, then enable photos to be synced through iTunes, I'll pull all the photos off your phone and onto your computer. Do you have a Mac or PC? My next step is different for both.

 

[jntdroid]

They are synced by iCloud, that's why they appear again.

They're not just appearing, they're taking up the same amount of space as before, immediately upon the first boot after a restore. (sorry if I'm misunderstanding you)

Turn off iCloud photo sync, then enable photos to be synced through iTunes, I'll pull all the photos off your phone and onto your computer. Do you have a Mac or PC? My next step is different for both.

PC. But won't that still include the photos in the backup then, if it's pushing them to the computer through iTunes sync?

Thank y'all both for the help so far.

 

[fg3_colton]

They're not just appearing, they're taking up the same amount of space as before, immediately upon the first boot after a restore. (sorry if I'm misunderstanding you)



PC. But won't that still include the photos in the backup then, if it's pushing them to the computer through iTunes sync?

Thank y'all both for the help so far.

Ok, I lied about that last thing. Ignore that, I was thinking you had a Mac. Alright, now, on your PC hit the start key. Type Photos. Launch the app. Select import and it'll detect your iPhone and all it's photos. Import them all and I believe it'll offer to delete them from the phone after import. If not, you could just delete them yourself on the iPhone. It'll store all your pictures on your computer and won't sync to your phone.

 

[J. A.]

They're not just appearing, they're taking up the same amount of space as before, immediately upon the first boot after a restore. (sorry if I'm misunderstanding you)...

Of course they do, because iCloud is syncing them to your device. As soon as you set up iCloud and enable iCloud Photo Library, they'll be pushed to the iPhone.

What you can do, is save them somewhere (your computer, cloud storage - not iCloud, though), disable iCloud Photo Library and PhotoStream, and remove all of your images from the Photos app, before backing up your current device.

 

[jntdroid]

Thank y'all for the help - exporting to my PC should do the trick... it had been so long since I had used any "manual" syncing I forgot about the "erase after import" option to get rid of the photos on the phone.

 

[fg3_colton]

Thank y'all for the help - exporting to my PC should do the trick... it had been so long since I had used any "manual" syncing I forgot about the "erase after import" option to get rid of the photos on the phone.

Did the photos app work well?

 

[jntdroid]

Did the photos app work well?

I couldn't get the Photos app to pull up through the Start menu, but used the auto prompt that pops up in Windows when you first plug the phone in. Once I got it open, I had to change the settings to "erase after import" for all, and it worked great. Only took about 15 minutes total for about 3k photos/videos.

 

[fg3_colton]

I couldn't get the Photos app to pull up through the Start menu, but used the auto prompt that pops up in Windows when you first plug the phone in. Once I got it open, I had to change the settings to "erase after import" for all, and it worked great. Only took about 15 minutes total for about 3k photos/videos.

Awesome! Glad it worked!