Do you want to delete a backup of your iPhone or iPad from iCloud? There are two reasons you might want to do this.
- Sometimes, if one is unable to successfully backup an iPhone or iPad to iCloud, it’s because the current backup is somehow gumming up the system. By removing the existing backup then one is able to start fresh and successfully backup his or her device.
- If one has stopped using an older iPhone or iPad it’s possible that the last backup of this device remains in one’s iCloud account. If this backup is more than a year old then it’s highly unlikely that one would ever want to recover data from this backup. Thus one might be wasting storage space in one’s iCloud account.
Here are instructions for deleting an iPhone or iPad backup from iCloud. These instructions show work on OS X Lion (aka OS X 10.7) and higher.
- Click on the Apple menu and select System Preferences
- Click on iCloud
- Click the Manage button in the lower right corner
- Click on Backups on the left-hand side
- On the right, review the backups listed as well as the date when the backup was performed. Click on the backup that you’d like to delete and then click the minus sign button. (Newer versions of the Mac operating system replace the minus sign button with a Delete button.)
- You’ll be asked if you’re sure you want to delete this backup and disable iCloud backups for the selected device. Click the Delete button if you’re sure you want to do this.
- If you deleted the backup because you were having problems backing up a currently used device, then wake up that device and re-enable iCloud backups by doing steps 8-10, otherwise, you’re done.
- Tap on Settings
- Tap on your name
- Tap on iCloud, scroll down to iCloud Backup and turn it on. Then tap on iCloud Backup and click the Back Up Now button to initiate a new backup.