Why can't my new iPhone 16e be backed up?

Jobone14 wrote:

My new phone 16 E says that it cannot be backed up. I now have twice as much storage as I had with my old phone so I don’t understand why.

If your phone is telling you that there isn't enough storage to do a backup, but there is plenty of free device storage on your phone, the message is probably referring to iCloud storage on Apple's servers.

What's the difference between device storage and iCloud storage? - Apple Support

When you back up your phone, the backup has to go somewhere else, either

• On Apple's iCloud servers, or
• On your computer

If the "backup" was on your phone, it wouldn't be much of a backup – as it would become lost or destroyed at the same time as the original data on your phone did.

You get 5 GB of free space in iCloud, but if you want more, you need to subscribe to iCloud+, either by itself, or as part of an Apple One bundle.

I would recommend

• Using iCloud backup, with your phone set to make automatic backups to iCloud
• Using iCloud synchronization – especially for Photos. When you synchronize data through iCloud, it is not also included in iCloud backups – the master copy in iCloud serves as a sort of backup. One big advantage of using iCloud Photos instead of including photos in iCloud backups is that if something should happen to your phone, you can access your photos from a Web browser, even before you're reset or replaced the phone.
• Subscribing to an iCloud+ plan that provides enough storage for the backed up and synchronized data.

Back up iPhone - Apple Support

Buy iCloud+ or upgrade your current storage plan - Apple Support

iCloud+ - Apple

Jobone14 wrote:

Hi, thanks!

I wasn’t trying to back it up; i was just getting that alert when I opened settings.

I always plug my phone in at night so any updates (and back-ups) can happen.

the message is: “you don’t have enough iCloud storage to back-up this device”

The 128GB of storage you have on your device is totally separate from the iCloud storage you would be using, including the amount needed to back it up. If you filled up your phone with 128GB of data, then you would not be able to back up all the data in the 50GB allotted for iCloud.

There are 2 approaches to take to identify and reduce the amount being stored in iCloud. Go to Settings > [name on top] > iCloud > Manage Account Storage.

• Review the data you are using for iCloud storage. If you are using iCloud Photos, then those are using iCloud storage space and are not included in the Backup, but the more photos you have the more iCloud storage space that is going to take, no matter how much storage you have available on your device.
• Also on that page, you can choose Backups and since you deleted your previous phone backup, the device you see should only be your current one. Tap on that and you will see how much more storage is needed for your Next Backup and you can also choose what data you do not want to backup to reduce the size of your iCloud Backup.

Jobone14 wrote:

Hi, thanks!

I have have 50 gb of extra iCloud storage. And have used 48 of it.

the message is”you don’t have enough iCloud space to back up this account “

why should I have to buy more iCloud space when I have so much more on the phone??

If you are synchronizing or backing up your phone to iCloud, and you have "much more" data on the phone than you have space in iCloud, that is why you need to buy more iCloud space!

When you back up or synchronize data, you are making a copy of it.

You might have to delete things, texts, photos etc.

How much iCloud storage do you have?

What message are you seeing?

After setting up your new phone from an old device, iCloud will have your previous device backup along with the data on your new device that will be attempting to create another iCloud backup for that device.

How are you trying to back it up? Wirelessly? Connected to a computer?

What is the exact wording to any errors messages or advisories your phone displays.