About Backups & Freeing Up Space

[SPROINGY]

Hi All!
Could anyone kindly tell me a bit about the iPad Air backup process? My backup(s) are currently taking up almost 1 GB of space, and I like to have as much free space available as possible. I have read the manual twice, and didn't see the following issues I'm wondering about addressed...

- When a new backup is made, what happens to the old one? Is it deleted, overwritten, or simply left untouched?

- What I would like is simply to have my most recent backup on hand. I have no reason to save previous ones; to me it seems those just waste space. So, I'm hoping someone could tell me the smartest way to do this. I do not want to create problems that I was unaware of! So...

- Can I just go into iCloud, delete the backup I have, then make a new, up to date one? That seems easiest, is there any reason *not* to proceed this way? Or is there a smarter/safer way to proceed?

Thanks for reading I hope I've been clear and complete in this post.

Best Wishes!

 

[scifan57]

Only the most recent backup is saved. The earlier backups are deleted. The only exception is for encrypted backups where they're all saved and have to be manually deleted as you choose.

 

[J. A.]

A backup to iCloud doesn't save everything that's on your iPad at the time the backup is happening. It just saves the changes since the last backup.

If you delete the latest backup (which is possible on your iPad, btw: Settings - General - Storage & iCloud Usage - iCloud - Manage Storage - Backups - your device), the next iCloud backup will have to save everything stored on your iPad, and it will automatically need more time until it's complete. This could become a problem if your internet connection is not good.

iCloud saves the last three backups, so if you have to restore from an iCloud backup, you can choose which one to use.

 

[SPROINGY]

scifan57 & J.A.,
Thank you both very much for your replies!