I get an error trying to restore an iPhone 6s plus backup from my mac running Catalina to an older iPhone 6 plus running ios 12.4.5. Error: Could not restore the iPhone "xxx"because the backkup was not compatible with the iPhone that is being restored. How can I restore the backup from Catalina to an iPhone not running ios 13?
iPhone 6
If the iPhone 6s that you backed up was on iOS 13, then you will not be able to restore that backup to the iPhone 6 Plus. You cannot restore a newer backup to a phone running an older iOS, and the iPhone 6 Plus cannot be upgraded to iOS 13. You just cannot do it.
It actually doesn't have anything to do with Catalina, it is just that you cannot restore a newer iOS backup to a device running an older iOS. Even if you had it all on iCloud, you would not be able to restore it either. The device you want to restore to has to have at least the same or higher iOS than the device you get the backup from. Your only option is to set it up as new, and download the necessary content. If you are using iCloud for Contacts and Calendar, as long as you log into the same iCloud account, you can turn those on to recover them.
Thanks Chris. That confirms what I was experiencing. I wanted to try going through iCloud but I have only 47gb of my 50gb account available and my phone has almost 61gb of usage so that is not an option. So I'm stuck with manually downloading apps and data unless you know of a better suggestion.
Restore a backup from mac with Catalina to an iphone 6 running ios 12.4.5
