How long are iPhone and Android backups kept?

An iPhone backup in iCloud is kept for 180 days after it stops being updated. An Android backup in your Google account is erased after 57 days without using the phone, or when you turn backup off. Photos and videos already in Google Photos survive. A Samsung Cloud backup lasts longer, up to 12 months without use. A WhatsApp backup in Google storage may go after five months without an update. A backup saved on your own Mac or PC has no expiry date at all. It stays until you delete it, or until the next backup of that phone replaces it.

What a phone backup is, and what it leaves out

A phone backup is a saved copy of what lives on one phone. That means its settings, its app data, the layout of its home screen and often its messages. You use it to set up a new or reset phone the way the old one was. Each backup belongs to one device.

A backup is not the same as sync. Sync keeps one live copy in the cloud and shows it on every device. Apple says iCloud Backup covers the information on your phone that does not already sync to iCloud. So if you use iCloud Photos or Messages in iCloud, those photos and messages are not in the backup. Google draws the same line from the other side: photos and videos you backed up to Google Photos are kept even when the Android backup is erased.

So the deadlines below apply to the phone backup only. Losing it costs you the settings, the app data and anything never synced, not your synced photo library. The wider difference between sync and a real backup is set out in the 3-2-1 backup rule in real life.

Every backup deadline in one table

Each company states its rule on its own help page or in its terms, and none puts the others beside it. Here they are together, as read on November 2, 2026.

Cloud backups are kept for a device you are still using. Stop using it, and every cloud provider with a published rule starts a clock. Only the copy on your own computer has none.

The rules in each company's words

Apple: 180 days. Apple's iCloud guide says that if you turn off iCloud Backup for a device, its backups are kept for 180 days before being deleted. The iCloud terms, last revised on September 14, 2026, cover the drawer case directly. If a device has not backed up to iCloud for 180 days, Apple reserves the right to delete any backups linked to that device.

Google: 57 days. Google One's help page says your backup data is erased if you do not use your device for 57 days, or if you turn off backups. The exception is what you backed up to Google Photos, which stays saved there.

Samsung: 12 months. Samsung's support page says all data stored in Samsung Cloud will be deleted if it has not been used for more than 12 months. Its terms, effective February 4, 2025, promise 30 days notice before deleting, and say the rule does not apply while you subscribe to a paid Samsung Cloud option. Samsung says photos and videos are not part of a Samsung Cloud backup.

WhatsApp: five months. On Android, WhatsApp says Google may automatically delete backups that have not been updated in five months. It also says each new backup replaces the previous one, and there is no way to restore an older one. On iPhone, the chats back up to iCloud, and WhatsApp's help names no deadline.

Your own computer: no clock. Apple's instructions show where a Mac or PC keeps iPhone backups and how to delete one, and describe no automatic deletion. To keep a backup, Apple says to archive it so later backups do not replace it.

Why people think a backup is kept forever

Two answers circulate: a cloud backup stays as long as you have the storage, or it expires. The second is right for every cloud service above that publishes a rule. The first persists because nothing on the phone tells you about the clock. Adam Engst at TidBITS made that point in June 2020. He wrote that Apple deletes iCloud backups after 180 days, that the policy dates back to at least 2013, and that Apple documents it in support pages and terms rather than in iOS itself.

Android Police found the same surprise on the Google side in September 2019. Google had announced the rule in 2017 as about two months of inactivity. Paying for Google One did not exempt anyone: a device not used within 57 days loses its backup either way.

The place this bites is the old phone in the drawer. You upgrade, keep the old phone as a spare or a fallback, and assume its backup is waiting in the cloud. It is waiting, but only until the clock runs out.

One old phone walked through the clocks

Take a phone retired on March 1 and put in a drawer, switched off. Suppose it made its last cloud backup that morning. Here is what the published rules say would follow.

• If it is an Android phone, 57 days of not using it runs to April 27. After that, Google's rule says the backup is erased. Photos already in Google Photos stay.
• If WhatsApp backed up to Google storage that morning and never again, five months runs to August 1. After that, Google may delete the chat backup.
• If it is an iPhone, 180 days without a backup runs to August 28. After that, Apple may delete any backup linked to the phone.
• If it is a Galaxy phone using Samsung Cloud, and the account goes unused too, the 12 month limit runs to the next March 1, with 30 days notice first under Samsung's terms.
• If the iPhone was also backed up to a Mac that same morning, nothing in Apple's instructions removes that copy. It stays on the Mac's drive until someone deletes it.

So the same drawer could hold one Android backup gone in under two months, and one iPhone backup that lasts about six.

What this answer does not cover

These are the deadlines each company publishes, and the wording leaves gaps. Google does not define what counts as using a device. Samsung's terms measure use of the account and of each category, not of one phone, and do not say whether a newer Galaxy keeps an old phone's backup alive. Apple's terms say it reserves the right to delete, which is not a promise that it will on day 181. WhatsApp's iPhone help gives no rule at all. Treat each figure as the date after which the copy can disappear, not the date it must. Deleted files sitting in a trash folder follow separate rules, set out in how long deleted photos and files stay in the cloud. And the policies change: these were read on November 2, 2026.

How to keep a backup you might need

If the old phone is a spare, switch it on and back it up every month or so. A fresh backup restarts the Apple and WhatsApp clocks. On Android, switching the phone on and using it is what Google's rule asks for, and 57 days is the gap to stay inside.

If you want a copy with no clock at all, back up the iPhone to a Mac or PC. Archive it, and later backups will not replace it. A drive kept in a drawer has limits of its own, covered in how long an SSD keeps data without power.

If you are about to sell or recycle the old phone, make a fresh backup the day before you wipe it, then follow the order for wiping a device before you sell it. If you are unsure it should retire at all, see when to replace a phone and when to keep it. WhatsApp also needs enough free space on the phone to create a backup, so if yours is full, start with what to delete first on a full phone.

Above all, keep your photos somewhere that does not depend on one phone. A library exported to a computer or a drive, as in a photo backup system that survives a lost phone, outlives every deadline on this page.