How to Back Up iPhone 8 (Plus) without iCloud - Two Ways

There's no guarantee that data loss will not happen for you. You indeed should prepare a backup of iPhone 8 to protect data like contacts, videos, photos, notes, Safari bookmarks, and more from being lost. There are many approaches available for helping get iPhone 8 data backed up, iCloud, for instance. Using iCloud should be a great idea when you'd like to perform a backup of your iPhone 8. It stores iPhone contents on a cloud server and allows users to locate and view backups with ease.

Though iCloud on the whole is a pretty reliable option, it works only when you have iPhone connected to Wi-Fi network. Without the premise, backing up would be out of reach. In this case, you have to turn to other manners. Next we're going to show how can you create a backup of your iPhone 8 without iCloud in several distinct ways. Just follow along for the listed tricks.

Method 1. Back Up All files of iPhone 8 with iTunes/ Finder

Using iTunes to back up your iPhone 8 is a decent way when you don't want to upload iPhone data onto iCloud server. The service possesses an ability to make an entire backup for you. Click here to get detailed file types that iTunes can make a copy. Before performing the backup of iPhone 8 with iTunes, you should prepare a lightning cable.

And the steps involved in the entire backup procedure differ slightly depending on what kind of computer (Windows or MacOS) you own. 

On a Mac (macOS Catalina 10.15 and later):

To back up your iPhone 8 onto computer (without iCloud), follow these steps:

• Connect iPhone 8 to your Mac using the cable.
• Open Finder from Dock.
• Navigate to the left side of screen, choose [your iPhone name] under Locations.
• Head to General, check Back up all of the data on your iPhone to this Mac.
• Press Back Up Now.

On Windows PC/ Mac macOS Mojave 10.14 or an earlier version:

Directly follow these tips:

• Run iTunes on your computer.
• Hook up iPhone 8 to your PC or Mac.
• Find the small iPhone icon on the top left corner, click on it.
• Choose Summary. From the right big part, check This Computer.
• Click Back Up Now to do a full backup of iPhone 8.

There is an option named Encrypt iPhone backup under This Computer, enabling you to set a passcode for backup. You can also opt for the similar option (Encrypt local backup) in Finder for a backup encryption.

Method 2. Back Up Your iPhone 8 with 3rd Party Tool

If you're not a fan of iTunes or Finder, then you can take Fonelab (iOS Backup & Restore) into consideration to do you a favour. The fast and doable plan can help create backups of iPhone onto Windows or macOS computers. Unlike most software, iOS Data Backup & Restore allows you to select what types of data to back up locally, and restore them when you need.

Here's how to back up your data on iPhone 8 to a laptop or desktop without relying on iCloud.

Step 1: Plug iPhone into computer and choose the right mode

Connect your iPhone 8 to computer, and then run the software. A window pops up and shows three panes. Taking the task to move data files from iPhone to computer, you should go to iOS Data Backup & Restore > iOS Data Backup.

You then can see a new interface opening up. Here are two options: Standard backup and Encrypted backup. As the name implies, the latter one allows you to encrypt your backup by checking it.

If you don't want an encryption, just choose Standard backup and then click Start button.

Step 2: Select files to be backed up and start transfer

There will be a window showing different file types (Photos, App Audios, Calendar, Call History, etc.). Among them, pick the one(s) that you want to back up on computer. For example, check Contacts if you'd like to transfer contacts file.

Given you want to make a full backup of your iPhone 8 to PC/ Mac without using iCloud, directly choose Select All which sits at the bottom.

When you satisfy your choice, you can click Next button to start backing up your data on iPhone 8 to PC. Give the app a while to take care of the rest, and wait for the data migration is done.

How to Back Up Your iPhone 8 Using iCloud

Follow the instructions below to back up your iPhone 8 (Plus) data if you'd like to use iCloud.

• On your iPhone 8, open Settings and select [Your Name].
• Tap on iCloud > iCloud Backup.
• Hit the toggle to turn on iCloud Backup.
• Tap Back Up Now to back up your iPhone to iCloud server.

Wait a little while, your iPhone 8 contents will be synced to iCloud server later. You can also refer to this page to get your iPhone data transferred to iCloud.

An extra reminder is ‌iCloud comes with only 5GB of storage for free, thus you should use caution with iCloud storage capacity. You can also pay for extra storage to meet needs: You will be offered 50GB of storage for 99 cents a month, 200GB for $2.99 a month, or 2TB for $9.99 a month.