iTunes is not showing device backups - can't restore backup
In iTunes (12.3 on Windows), clicking
Edit > Preferences... > Device tab
shows an empty list of backups even though there should be a bunch of them.
I needed to get my phone replaced, so I backed up my phone last night, took it to Apple today and got a replacement. In trying to restore the new phone from the backup, iTunes never offered the option - it would just say "Welcome to your new iPhone" with a Continue button.
No matter what I did, it would never offer the option to restore from a previous backup. So I selected Continue and it set it up as a new phone. The options to restore from a previous Backup were greyed out. I tried various suggestions from the internet with no luck - for example, doing a backup and then holding down shift when clicking the Restore button without any luck.
One of the backup folders was causing a problem.
Here is where the backups are stored:
On Windows at %AppData%\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\
On Mac it's at ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup
Here's what to do:
- Move all the folders in the Backup folder to a different location
- Move a single folder back (I did it in reverse chronological order)
- Click on Edit > Preferences > Device tab to see if the backups show in the list
- Repeat 2 and 3 until you get an empty list - you've found the bad backup folder (or at least a backup that the newer iTunes can't understand)
- Delete or move that bad backup
In my case, it was an old iPad 1 iOS5 backup that was causing the problem.
This can also be caused if you have your iTunes storage on a different drive. I just had this issue and when it backed up it stored to the C: drive instead of the F: drive where I have all my iTunes files. I just needed to move the folder from the path above on the C: drive to the same path on the F: drive.