This guide tells you all you need to know about installing new versions of iOS, upgrading to them, downgrading, and restoring data. Here's what it contains:

How to safely update iOS on your iPhone or iPad

Make sure your data is safe

Before starting any iOS update make sure your iPhone or iPad data is saved. You have two options: an iTunes or an iCloud backup.

Save your files in a safe place if you make iTunes backups. Make an iTunes backup and a copy of it which you can store on Dropbox or on a different computer, as a 'plan B'. If you don’t know where the iTunes files are located on your computer, check this article.

Once you make a new iCloud backup, deactivate iCloud automatic backups after the backup is performed. This will stop any unwanted backup being made after you update. It’s an important step, as your initial iCloud backup could be overwritten by an incomplete one, or by a backup of the phone in a failed state.

To deactivate automatic iCloud backups, go to Settings → iCloud and click on Backup. You’ll find a switch button. Turn it off and confirm.

Click 'OK' and you are taken to the iPhone restore page. The timing is tricky and it may take a few tries. Step Hold down 'Control' (or 'Option' on a Mac) and click 'Restore.' This will bring up a file browser. Locate the custom IPSW firmware and click 'Open.' ITunes will begin restoring the iPhone using the custom firmware. Download current and previous versions of Apple's iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS and audioOS firmware and receive notifications when new firmwares are released.

Once you’ve performed a backup of your data, you’re ready to perform a safe iOS upgrade. The procedure is simple.

You have two options to update your iPhone or iPad to the latest iOS, from iCloud or using iTunes.

If you use iCloud or over the air (OTA) updates, here’s what to do. From the Settings menu go to General then select Software update. You’ll see an option called 'Download and install'. Click on it to initiate the iOS update procedure. If you have restrictions PIN active on the phone, you’ll be asked to introduce it.

If you decide to use the iTunes method, you should install the latest version of iTunes. Then connect your iPhone or iPad to your computer and select your iOS device. On 'Summary', select Check for update then choose Download and update. Wait until the upgrade procedure is finished. Don’t disconnect your iPhone before the iOS update is finished.

Common reasons for failed iOS updates -- and fixes 👩‍⚕️

An iOS upgrade could fail for a lot of reasons. These are the most common ones and the fixes which should be used to make sure the next update will be a successful one:

1. A network error. If you use the OTA method, this is the most common reason for a failed iOS update. You will receive a message telling you that 'an error occurred downloading iOS'. If you tried to restart the iPhone or you disabled and reactivated the Wi-Fi and you can’t make it work you still have a solution: reset your wireless connection. Go to Settings → General → Reset and choose Reset Network Settings. Check your Wi-Fi connection after resetting.

2. You need more free space on the iPhone. The default message for this error is: 'Insufficient Space For Download'. Sometimes, the reason for a failed iOS upgrade is the amount of free space available on the phone. To solve this problem, allow app deletion, or worst case make an iTunes or iCloud backup then delete some files. If you have backups, you can get your files back anytime, after the update.

3. A power failure or a disconnected cable. This is an unpleasant problem, an harder to fix. You have to check if the iPhone is still working or not. The best solution is to connect it to your computer, then initiate an iTunes restore. After the restoration is complete, you can try once again to update your iPhone to iOS.

How to retrieve your data if the iOS upgrade failed

Sometimes instead of updating to iOS, you’re stuck with a failed update or with an older version and a corrupt backup. Even if an update goes wrong, you can still get data back as long as you use the iPhone Backup Extractor.

Depending on where your data was backed up, we recommend you check out either our guide on iCloud data recovery or on getting data back from iTunes backups.

If you get stuck, please drop us a note on live chat. We'd love to help.

How to install an iOS beta

Important things to know before installing an iOS beta

We strongly recommend that before any iOS update you back up with iTunes or iCloud. In fact, such backups should be done regularly in case you ever need to rely on them. This will cover you if:

• iTunes doesn't want to restore that data
• You don't want all of your data from iCloud or iTunes -- just specific files, or
• You want to access all of your iOS device data offline on your computer

How do you access your data if the above happens? It's simple. Use iPhone Backup Extractor, on Windows or macOS, and access your iTunes or iCloud backup with just a few clicks. Our expert support is always happy to help and share from their knowledge and experience, so if you run into troubles or need help, just reach out to us.

To install a full image of an iOS beta on your iPhone, iPad or iPod, you should use the latest released version of iTunes. If you don't have it installed, you can download it from Apple's website. However, modern versions of iOS can be updated to a beta using an 'over the air' (OTA) backup. OTA updates are faster and easier, and won't require the use of iTunes -- or even a computer.

If you need more help, don't forget that Apple publish a document on using their betas.

How to install iOS 14 beta on your device (also works for iOS 13 - 10 betas)

Through the developer beta

1. On your iOS device, navigate to developer.apple.com in Safari

2. Click 'account' and log with to your Apple developer account credentials

3. Select the 'downloads' section

4. Find the latest iOS beta installation profile, and click to download it

5. Your iPhone will bring up a prompt, asking if you'd like to install a configuration profile: choose to do so

6. On your iPhone, go to Settings → General → Software Update, and tap Download and Install

7. Wait for the install and reboot -- and you're done!

Through the public beta

1. On your iOS device, navigate to beta.apple.com/profile, and tap on 'Download Profile' section to enrol your device

2. Your iPhone will bring up a prompt, asking if you'd like to install a configuration profile: choose to do so

3. On your iPhone, go to Settings → General → Software Update, and tap Download and Install

4. Wait for the install and reboot -- and you're done!

About Apple's iOS beta programs

There are two types of iOS beta versions available: the public beta and the developer beta, available through the Apple Developer Program.

The difference between the public beta and the developer beta is that the latter allows developers to build or update third-party apps for iOS. Hence, this may include access to additional resources, compared to those included in the public beta.

It is not a good idea to run the betas on your primary iOS device, not least as they can lead to data loss and regular crashes, and can be hard to roll back from. At least, without losing your data. Still, that's where we help. 👊

The developer beta starts a few weeks before the public betas, and is updated earlier, and sometimes more frequently.

Both versions include a 'Feedback Assistant' app that captures input from those enrolled in the beta program. The 'Apple Beta Agreement' includes a confidentiality agreement, such that if you are enrolled you cannot talk about the software beyond what Apple themselves makes public. Apple betas should be installed on a device that isn't shared with others, and that is not your primary device. Installing the beta update won't void your hardware warranty.

Every year it gets easier to opt-in to the betas. Happy exploring!

How to install an older iOS beta (iOS 9 or below)

Prior to the changes in iOS 10 that simplified the beta installation process, there were a few additional steps to install betas from older versions of iTunes. Specifically, registration of your device's UDID was required.

To register your UDID and access betas, membership of the Apple Developer Program is required. This has an annual membership cost of $99.

Two ways to find your iPhone's UDID

How to find the UDID using iTunes

1. Connect your iOS device and launch iTunes

2. Select your device

3. On the 'Summary' tab, click on the 'Serial Number' label to reveal the 40 character UDID string

4. Right-click and then choose 'Copy'

How to find the UDID using Xcode

1. Connect your iOS device and launch Xcode on Mac

2. Go to the 'Organizer' and select your device

3. Highlight and copy the UDID string

How to register an iPhone's UDID in Member Centre

1. With the UDID in your clipboard, log in to Apple's Member Center, click on Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles and select Devices

2. Click the + symbol to register

3. Give your iOS device a name and paste your Unique Device Identifier copied from iTunes or Xcode

4. Click continue and confirm your entry to complete the registration process

With that done, go back to the Member Center page and navigate through SDK, iOS and iOS {version} beta. Select your device and start downloading.

That'll leave you with a downloaded .dmg or .zip file to extract. These files contain the .IPSW file you need for installation.

Opening DMG files on Windows

Betas from iOS 7 and earlier were distributed as DMG archives. Windows users can't natively open these, but our app DMG Extractor can do this for you.

How to install an IPSW restore file to your iPhone or iPad

1. Before proceeding, turn off “Find my iPhone” in Settings → iCloud → Find my iPhone

2. Connect your iOS device to your computer

3. Launch iTunes and select your device from the top right corner

4. If your iOS device asks to trust your computer, agree, and enter the code on your device

5. Create an up-to-date iTunes backup to keep your data safe

   We'd recommend locally to iTunes, as it's quicker both to backup and restore

6. From the summary tab, hold down the ⇧ Shift key (on Windows) or ⌥ Option key (on Mac) and click the 'Restore' or 'Check for Update' buttons

7. Select the iOS beta IPSW image and click open to being the installation

8. iTunes will inform you that it will update your iOS device (even if you've selected an older firmware) and will verify this update with Apple; click 'Update'

9. Your device will reboot after completing the installation; a network connection is required to complete the activation

10. 'Slide to upgrade' will appear as your device restarts: unlock, enter the password, activate if necessary, and wait for the install process to finish

That’s it! You should now have successfully updated to the beta version of iOS that you selected.

How to upgrade from iOS beta or gold master to the official release

If you're a developer and you're running a gold master release of iOS from the developer beta program, you'll know that often the gold master is binary-identical with the official release. When this is the case, there's no need to update. Sometimes, however, it's not, and there's not an obvious way to get onto the final release.

The answer calls for the classic backup, upgrade and restore. You'll need to download the Gold Master release of iOS, before following the steps we laid out above on installing an IPSW restore file.

How to downgrade an iPhone or iPad from iOS beta

Restoring to an older version of iOS might mean you will not be able to get the data you gathered while using the newer version of iOS on your device. You will not be able to restore an iOS beta iTunes or iCloud backup to an older iOS version. Also -- if you're a cheeky jailbreak user -- your saved blobs will be lost after downgrade.

Restoring your iTunes or iCloud backup data to your iPhone or iPad is possible for most of backed up files, but it's not trivial. Here's our guide on how you can get some of the most important backup data back to your iOS device.

Important: before downgrading from an iOS beta

It's essential to back up your iOS device to either iCloud or iTunes, so that if something goes wrong you can recover your data. We've said it before, but we cannot say it enough: make sure you back up your device before you start the following steps.

You should use the latest version of iTunes.

An iOS downgrade may lead to lost or unavailable data. Apple doesn’t recommend downgrading, therefore caution should be taken.

Downgrades are possible as long as Apple continues to sign the firmware you'd like to downgrade to. Usually, Apple stops signing earlier versions of iOS about a week or two after a new release.

If you receive an error message 'This device isn’t eligible for the requested build', this could mean that either Apple has stopped signing the iOS firmware, or you’ve downloaded the wrong one.

Here's our step-by-step to do it:

1. Download the older firmware for your device, make sure you download the appropriate version for your iPhone, iPad or iPod

2. Before proceeding, turn off “Find my iPhone” in Settings → iCloud → Find my iPhone

3. Connect your iOS device to your computer

4. Launch iTunes and select your device from the top right corner

5. Create an up-to-date iTunes backup to keep your data safe

   We'd recommend locally to iTunes, as it's quicker both to backup and restore

6. Put your device into DFU mode. To do this, turn off the device, hold the power button for 3 seconds, whilst holding the Home button for 10 seconds. Release the power button and continue holding the home button until iTunes shows the recovery mode confirmation. Click OK.

7. Then click on the 'Restore iPhone' button and select 'Restore and Update' for the confirmation.

8. iTunes will give you some information about the iOS update and will wait for you to click through 'Next' and 'Agree' buttons. iOS will be downloaded and installed to your device.

9. Your device will reboot after completing the installation; a network connection is required to complete the activation

10. 'Slide to upgrade' will appear as your device restarts: unlock, enter the password, activate if necessary, and wait for the install process to finish

Install Custom Ipsw Without Itunes

That's it! You’ve successfully downgraded.

If you're in need of help restoring an iOS backup from a newer iOS device to an older version of IOS, we have a guide for that here.

Having problems? Don't be a stranger: reach out or leave a comment below!

Ok, so you have an iPod Classic (80, 120 or 160 GB), or a Nano (3G or 4G should work, can't speak for the newer models). You have done something bad to it, like changing the firmware or deleting something you shouldn't have deleted, and you want to bring it to life? Great, that's the article you're looking for!

First, you should try restoring it with iTunes. But it probably won't recognise it, unless you put it in DFU mode. Here's a video on how to achieve this:

Then use iTunes' Restore option. It should actually ask you to do it, just accept it and it would be back to life in a minute or two.

But, .... it doesn't work! What should I do? It's BROKEN!

Calm down, and keep reading...

Itunes Ipsw Download

• 4Steps to restore

THE SOFTWARE AND INSTRUCTIONS ARE PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR INSTRUCTIONS, OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE OR INSTRUCTIONS.

Continue reading only if your agree.

• An iPod (Classic - also known as iPod 6G/7G) (It works for Nanos, but the files are different!)
• Computer with Windows (Linux tutorial coming soon, it's mostly the same except that you don't need to care about drivers, but need to build ipodscsi from source)
• Patience

1. You put the iPod into DFU mode
2. You send the first stage of the restore firmware (called 'WTF') to the iPod using mks5lboot
3. The iPod reconnects with a different USB IDs
4. You send the second stage of the restore firmware (called 'FIRMWARE') to the iPod using mks5lboot
5. The iPod shows a monochrome disk mode screen
6. You repartition the hard disk, upload the new firmware and reboot the iPod - all these three at once using ipodscsi
7. Your iPod is working again. Yay!

You're ready? Ok, let's do it!

There's also a video of (almost) the whole procedure. The commands are longer, because I have the files in different directories. Also, it doesn't show USB driver installation, because I already have them installed.

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-nEXXv8_PY

The video is outdated, showing the old procedure (using Python/pyusb and ipoddfu.py).

Putting the iPod into DFU mode

1. Get an USB to iPod dock cable.
2. Connect it to your computer.
3. Get your iPod.
4. Lock the HOLD switch, then unlock it after a second.
5. Connect the USB cable to the iPod.
6. During the next two steps, disregard what happens on the iPod's screen, just do what we ask you to.
7. Hold down MENU + SELECT (the center button) for 12 seconds (count to 12, just to be sure that your timing is right).
8. Release the buttons.
9. You're in DFU mode.

Here's a video, to make it more clear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_bIDtBohnE

Uploading the first restore stage (WTF)

'What the f*ck'? No, probably means Writing The Firmware or Waiting for The Firmware - we never found out. Who cares, anyway.

1. Press the Start menu button.

2. Type cmd and press Enter.

3. In the black window that opens, type cd Desktop and press Enter.

4. Download one of these files to your Desktop, depending on the Windows version you have (x86 = 32 bit, x64 = 64-bit): mks5lboot32.exe OR mks5lboot64.exe (Right-click, then choose Save link as...).

5. And this one too, from Apple's servers: x12230000_Recovery.ipsw (I hope they won't delete it at some point, because we can't legally host it on our server).

6. Go to your desktop, and rename the ipsw file to zip.

7. Use your favourite tool to extract the zip, WinZip, WinRAR and 7-zip will do it well, even Windows' integrated ZIP extractor will do.

8. Open the extracted folder, and go to Firmware -> dfu. There should be a file named WTF.x1223.RELEASE.dfu there. Copy it to the desktop.

Please note that the commands here are for the 32-bit version, which should work on all Windows versions - if you choose to use the 64-bit version, please enter mks5lboot64.exe instead of mks5lboot32.exe in the following commands!

9. Back in the black window, type: (or copy/paste)

and press Enter.

You should see a message similar to the following, showing that your iPod is detected. If not, please ask for support and do not continue.

10. Enter the following command:

You should see the following output:

If you see something different, stop here. Otherwise, go ahead.

Uploading the second restore stage (FIRMWARE)

1. Enter the following command:

You should see the following output:

Install Custom Ipsw Without Itunes App

2. On the line that has a 'found' text, look for the USB Product ID. It is the four symbols after the text PID_. In this example, it's 1245 which means a Classic 2G (120GB)

3. Download one of the following files, depending on your iPod's model/product ID.

• For Classic 1G (USB PID 1241), download x12410000_Recovery.ipsw.
• For Classic 2G (USB PID 1245), download x12450000_Recovery.ipsw.
• For Classic 3G (USB PID 1247), download x12470000_Recovery.ipsw.

4. As before, rename it to zip and extract it.

5. Go inside the folder Firmware -> dfu, and copy the file to your desktop. It should be named FIRMWARE.x****.RELEASE.dfu where **** is the USB ID of your iPod at the moment.

6 Enter the following command:

and press Enter.You should see the following output:

After 10-20 seconds, you should see an Apple logo on the screen, and after a couple more second a white screen with a stop sign and text Do not disconnect at the bottom. Windows might want to reformat it, say No if it does. Continue to the next step.

Final step: Install Apple's firmware

1. You're almost there. Go to http://www.felixbruns.de/iPod/firmware/ and download the latest firmware for your iPod model.
2. As you might have guessed, you need to rename the ipsw to zip, and extract it.
3. In that folder, you'll find a file named Firmware-XX-X.X.X (X's depending on the model and version). Copy it to the desktop.
4. Download ipodscsi.exe to your desktop.
5. Open Windows Explorer, and look for your iPod. It should be in the Removable drives section. Take a note of its drive letter (e.g. F:).
6. Open the black window, and type:

You should see:

Your iPod will reboot. You'll see a black screen with an Apple logo, and a progress bar at the bottom. Then it will again, show you another Apple logo for a while, and finally start Apple's firmware.

Install Ipsw Without Itunes

It should be safe to format it at this point. Use FAT32 as filesystem. Windows isn't going to allow you format large devices with FAT32, so you might need to use a third-party tool. FAT32 Format is a good choice.

Install Custom Ipsw Without Itunes Free

Then use iTunes to manage your music/videos. Or install Rockbox.

Enjoy your unbricked iPod!