Clean install

By Alana, 25 October, 2014

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

How do I complete a clean install of iOS 8.1 without deleting my contacts and text messages? Is this possible?

Options

Comments

By Lielle ben simon on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 15:27

Yes do the fallowing go to "settings" "general", "reset", and reset all content and settings".
Like this you got iphone with cleen of ios8.1.

By Serena on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 15:27

yes, this deletes your settings, but it doesn't in fact reinstall the OS. the only way to get a truely clean install if there is something wrong with your current install, is to use itunes, and perform a restore on the phone. always make sure to backup just in case you need to get any information back. but i'd recomend that you do a clean install, and set the device up as new. this offers the best chance you will have as few problems as possible.
also, as long as you have contacts turned on for iCloud, they will automatically download on your new setup, as soon as you sign into your iCloud account.

By Dave Nason on Friday, October 24, 2014 - 15:27

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Hi. If you do a clean install, any data you have saved in I cloud such as your contacts will automatically download once you sign in with your Apple ID. However text messages are not part of this and will be lost. There is some hocus pocus you can do on the Mac apparently, but I've never had a lot of luck with it. So if you really can't afford to lose your text messages, then you will probably have to do a restore from backup.