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FWIW I tried to restore my iPhone backup from my Mac last week, and it totally failed. If I hadn't had iCloud, I'd be SOL.

(This is not a defence of Apple btw - it's unforgivable that they lock down the phone so you can only use their backup feature, and it doesn't actually work).

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Wait wtf, that’s how I back up my data. It’s impossible to test these backups, I might need to pay for iCloud for peace of mind then.

“One is none, two is one” when it comes to backups. If you have a service like Microsoft 365, OneDrive comes with 1TB of data and can backup photos. You can also use Google and Amazon. There’s even option like Nextcloud and Owncloud for a self hosted solution.

I do have back up of the photos and videos, but the rest of the phone can only be backed up using iCloud or Finder/iTunes on Windows. Both methods are actually impossible to test without a spare phone.

is the backup encrypted? I wonder if it's possible to extract the photos from a bad backup

Yes it was. I've kept it in case there is some way to fix/restore it in future, but since I had all the important photos/videos on iCloud, I don't really have a pressing need.

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