How to Downgrade from iOS 15 to iOS 14 Without Losing Data?

Part 1: Backup your iPhone before downgrade from iOS 15

Before you downgrade iOS 15, it is important to backup your device. Since the process would wipe your device’s storage, you would end up losing your important content. Therefore, it is highly recommended to backup your phone before performing iOS 15 downgrade. Ideally, you can do it in different ways.

1. Backup iPhone with iTunes

One of the best ways to backup your device is by using iTunes. Simply connect your iPhone to your system and launch iTunes. Afterward, you can go to its Summary page and click on the “Backup Now” button. You can choose to backup your content on the local storage or iCloud.

2. Backup iPhone with iCloud

Alternatively, you can directly backup your device on iCloud as well. Even though this is a more time-consuming process, it will let you perform the backup operation over the air. Go to your device’s Settings > iCloud > Backup and turn on the feature of “iCloud Backup”. Tap on the “Backup Now” button to take immediate actions.

3. Backup iPhone with Dr.Fone - Phone Backup (iOS)

It is undoubtedly one of the easiest and fastest ways to take a comprehensive or a selective backup of your device. You can simply select the kind of data files you wish to backup. Dr.Fone - Phone Backup (iOS) provides a one-click solution to backup and restore your content in a hassle-free and secure manner.

Part 2: How to Downgrade iOS 15 to iOS 14?

After taking a backup of your data, you can easily go back to iOS 14 from iOS 15 without experiencing any data loss. Nevertheless, you should meet some prerequisites beforehand for a smooth transition. For instance, make sure that you are using an updated version of iTunes before performing iOS 15 downgrade. Go to iTunes (Help) > check for updates option to update your iTunes version.

Additionally, you need to turn off the “Find my iPhone” feature on your device. To do this, visit your device’s Settings > iCloud > Find my iPhone and switch off the feature.

Lastly, you need to download the IPSW file of the iOS 14 version you want to downgrade to. You can visit IPSW website https://ipsw.me/ to get all the versions.

Now when you are ready, let’s proceed and learn how to go back to iOS 14 by following these steps.

1. To start with, you need to switch off your iPhone and wait for a few seconds.

2. Now, put your phone into DFU (Device Firmware Update) mode. This can be done by pressing the Home and Power button at the same time. Keep pressing them for around 10 seconds. Let go of the Power button (while still holding the Home button). If the screen stays black, then you have entered the DFU mode.

3. In case if you are not able to enter your device in the DFU mode, then you might need to redo the steps. You can learn how to enter and exit DFU mode on iPhone in this article.

4. Launch iTunes on your system and connect your device to it. As you would connect your device to your system, iTunes will automatically detect it and provide a prompt like this. Click on Cancel to proceed.

6. Go to iTunes and visit its Summary section. If you are using iTunes on Windows, then press the Shift key while clicking on the “Restore iPhone” button. Mac users need to press Option + Command key while doing the same.

7. This will open a browser window. Go to the location where the downloaded IPSW file is saved and open it.

8. Wait for a while as your iPhone will be restored to the selected version of iOS. You can observe that the screen of your device would be changed as the restoring operation commences.

Wait for a while as iTunes would downgrade iOS 15 to the loaded IPSW version of iOS 14. Make sure that you don’t disconnect the device until the operation is completed successfully.

Part 3: How to restore iPhone from backup after iOS downgrade?

After performing iOS 15 downgrade to the respective version of iOS 14, you can simply use your device the way you like. Though, you would be required to recover your data afterward. Once you go back to iOS 14, take the assistance of Dr.Fone - iOS Data Recovery to restore your backup to your device.

Since you won’t be able to simply restore your content from the backup file of one iOS version to another, Dr.Fonewill provide a hassle-free solution. You can use it to restore backup from iCloud as well as iTunes. It can also perform a recovery operation to retrieve your previously deleted content from your device storage as well. You can choose to selectively restore iTunes and iCloud backup too. In this way, you would be able to retrieve your data after iOS 15 downgrade.

You can read this guide to restore iPhone from backup after iOS downgrade.