While playing with iOS' new iCloud backup service I found that my device backups were huge. For instance, my iPad wanted to take 4.8GB of space while my iPhone wanted to take 1.7GB of space. Obviously this would make my 5GB of iCloud storage useless rather quickly, fear not! First of all, how do you enable cloud backups? Open the Settings app and select iCloud. From there go down to the "Storage & Backup" button. Once you tap that you'll see where you can enable the iCloud backup and start a manual backup. Once you enable it and create a backup to start, you can tap on "Manage Storage" which will show you any and all device backups on your iCloud. Taping on any of those will bring you a menu where you can select individual apps that get backed up, or not. On my iPad, I dont want to backup my pictures because I'm going to let Photo Stream do that. I also dont want to backup my comic books or my Wired magazines. I unchecked those three apps and the backup size went from 4.8GB to 873MB. That's more like it! Disabling images on my iPhone (for the same reasons) allowed me to go from 1.7GB to 233MB on the iPhone. I now have two devices backing up to my iCloud and they only take around 1GB of my 5GB of storage. I expect Apple to allow you to purchase more storage once the service actually goes live but I feel like this is the better solution either way. There are just things you dont need in the event of getting a replacement for a iCloud enabled device.
Making iOS 5's iCloud device backups smaller
· 5 min read