Solve the backup “iPhone” cannot be restored to this iPhone because the software on this phone is too old” error on iTunes without restoring your iPhone to the latest software

This post was last updated on December 10th, 2018 at 09:39 am

Now, I made a backup of my old iPhone a few days after upgrading to the latest version. I got another iPhone which has a version older to the previous one. All I wanted to do is to restore my backup from the old phone to the new one. Shockingly, I got this annoying message on my iTunes window. Today’s article will help you to solve the backup iPhone cannot be restored to this iPhone. This solution works on both Windows and Mac computers.

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“The backup “iPhone” cannot be restored to this iPhone because the software on this phone is too

To restore the iPhone from this backup, you must first setup the iPhone as new and restore the software to the latest version”

Solve the backup iPhone cannot be restored to this iPhone: Why you might not want to restore to the latest software before restoring your backup.

It looks pretty easy to simply update your new phone to the latest software so that you can bypass the iTunes error and restore your existing backup. However, in you may have more than one reasons why you would rather get your backup first before contemplating on whether you want that particular software update or not. Below are some of the reasons why you may feel you are better off on your older software.

1. Fear of the unknown: Something might just break in the cause of you restoring the backup. For example. It is better you deal with the known and have all your data than go with the gambling
2. No one likes it when you are being coerced and your freedom of choice is sabotaged especially when you have done nothing wrong. It is my decision to upgrade my iOS to the latest version or not. I don’t want to be ordered like that.
3. Newer software is not always very beneficial for older phones. It can simply be too heavy for your older device. For example, you can’t compare the performance of an iPhone 6 running iOS 10 compared to when it was running i0S 7 or 8. Something may just be missing if your iDevice is significantly old.
4. Apps support: You may be having some Apps that are not yet supported by the latest software. It means if you upgrade, you will have to wait for an update to those apps. Also, there may be some compatibility issues between your new software and some of your apps.
5. Battery drain and other bugs: You can restore to a newer iOS software and you start noticing significant battery drain or software bug. I know you will wish you’d stayed on the previous version.
6. Timewasting: No matter how fast your internet might be, having to first restore your software before restoring your backup will consume your time.
7. Poor internet connection: If this happens to you in an area where you have a poor internet connection, you would agree with me that this can be very frustrating
8. You wish to preserve your jailbreak: Suffice to say that you must not update your iPhone software if you have an iOS that can be jailbroken.
9. Why waste your internet data and money whey you don’t need to?. If you are using a capped data, then you would lose a huge amount of data to the restore.

Solve the backup iPhone cannot be restored to this iPhone: Warnings!!

I have only confirmed this to work on iPhones that are having the same version as the one from which the software was backed up. For example, If your backup is with a phone running iOS 10, your iOS version should also be iOS 10. However, you can try a restore from a backup version with iOS 10 to an iPhone running iOS 9. In my case, I restored from iOS 11.3 to iOS 11.2. it can be from iOS 7.1.3 to 7.0 it doesn’t matter.  All I am trying to say here is that I didn’t try it on phones with different iOS versions.

solve the backup iPhone cannot be restored to this iPhone: Requirements and prerequisites 

• First off, you must have manually backed up your old iPhone to your computer with the latest version of iTunes or either Mac or windows. Without a good backup, this tutorial is void. Also, remember your icloud password for the backup if you set any.
• You need a computer. Mac or windows, it doesn’t matter as this will work.
• Also, you need a stable internet connection
• Furthermore, you must download PlistEDITOR Pro for Windows here or Macbook here

Steps to solve the backup “iPhone” cannot be restored to this iPhone because the software on this phone is too old

This  Fix is only for the Following Error: “The backup cannot be restored to this because of the software on the iPhone is too old”/iPhone too Old” as shown in the picture below:

THE STEPS

• Download Plist Editor to edit info.plist File that is within your iTunes backup folder. Get the links above.
•  Steps: 1: For Windows computers, Open “C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup“ And for a MacBook computer, copy and paste the following string into Spotlight search as shown below. “~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup“
• Step 2: Locate your Backup Folder Now and Open it (It will be a random name of the folder like) “c7d2e2b8019e64c1b6a810179d8df939f80ea155-20170526-131843”
• Step 3: Now Open info.plist file (Use Plist Editor to open this File by selecting open with on windows). For Macbook, drag and drop the info.plist file unto the Plist EDITOR Pro icon. See picture below
• Step 4: On windows, Toggle to List View. On Macbook, locate the product version line and double click on it to edit. See more details from the image below.
• Step 5: Edit Product Version to the current version you have in your iDevice
• 6: Close the info.plist file
• 7: Do Save Changes to the file.
• Step 8: Open iTunes and Restore from the backup now

CONCLUSION

If this method fails to work for you, please go over the steps the second time and make sure you did not set your iPhone as a new iPhone. Choose to restore from previous iPhone iTunes backup. After all, is said and done and it still would not work, please restore your phone to the latest iOS before restoring your backup.