iPhone backup OS Sierra

[steve1960]

Hi all, I am using a late 2009 MacBook white running Sierra and an iPhone 6s running iOS 13.

I cannot backup the phone to the laptop iTunes does not detect the phone and it does not appear in Finder.

I suspect the issue is a combination of using an old OS and the changes to iTunes when Catalina was introduced. However if there is a way to make the backup work I would appreciate some guidance.

I do have a particular reason for not changing the operating system or laptop so if I cannot get this combination to work I will just forget about backing up the phone.

Many Thanks

 

[Rod]

You have a couple of options, you can backup the iPhone to iCloud or a third party app such as iMazing. Unfortunately iMazing is fairly expensive at AU $64.00. I have been using it for a long time and it was cheaper initially but there is very little competition for it (iMazing Store). It is a complete suite of management tools, providing backup, sync, file management, updates, data transfer etc.
If you just want to be safe, fire up iCloud Drive and choose what you want to backup on the phone then go to backups and click iCloud backup to on. This will perform backups when the phone is locked, plugged into power and connected to WiFi.

 

[ferrarr]

The iPhone and MacBook should be able to get the backup to work.

Refer to this Apple Support Discussion to see if it helps you, ios 13 and itunes support - Apple Community.


Sent from my iPad using Mac-Forums

 

[steve1960]

I went for the iCloud option as its straightforward and I don't use iCloud for anything else. I did look at the link but there was mostly talk about High Sierra and El Capitan. Although my ancient Mackbook will run High Sierra I choose not to do that for a specific reason. Anyway its all fine now the phone is backed up thank you both.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Your macOS is too old to run a recent enough version of iTunes to connect to iOS at 13.x. This has been a long standing issue with iOS devices, people tend to replace their phones a lot faster than their computers. Also, they tend to upgrade the phones more so than their computers.

For this reason alone, iOS can now be fully operated without ever connecting to iTunes for activation or backup.