There are so many so-called iPhone backup viewers. Each one looks the same by offering similar features and promising to help you easily get things from your iPhone backup on your computer or the Apple iCloud server.
But how can you pick out the most useful and safe one to view the hidden data on your backup files? With so many app reviews crowding on the Internet, it would be so hard to get it.
Top Free iPhone Backup Viewers [2020 Updated]
Here we’ve reviewed more than 10 iPhone backup browser and extractor tools, and finally picked out 3 programs that you can use to preview some photos, messages, etc. on your iPhone backup for free.
These apps are free to browse and preview some content in iOS backups, but the apps are not free for all their features.
1. iMazing
iMazing could be a quite easy-to-use iTunes backup extractor. It does a good job to help people quickly preview and extract photos, messages, contacts, call logs, and other media file types from iTunes backup.
This app is worth trying since it has stable performance, and it provides you with many useful features to manage content on your iOS device besides browsing an iPhone backup. You can go to my collected iPhone transfer software to know more about this app.
Supported file types:
Photos, Videos, Contacts, Messages, Call History, Voicemail, Notes, Voice Memos, and other App Data.
Pros:
- 100% free for browsing content on all iTunes backup.
- Well compatible with the new iOS 13 and even iOS 14 beta backup.
- Supports Windows and Mac systems.
- Nice design and lots of useful features.
Cons:
- It’s not free if you want to extract from backup.
- Can’t view iCloud backup contents.
2. Decipher Backup Browser
Decipher Backup Browser is developed by a USA-based professional data recovery team. And its lead developer, Kelly, started developing software for the iPhone since 2008 when the App Store first launched.
Decipher iPhone Backup Browser provides a free trial, with which people can access iTunes backup or encrypted backup and view/extract contents in it. This program is very powerful since it can find more hidden data according to my recent test.
Supported File Types
- Photos, Videos, Songs, Contacts, Notes, Voice Memo, PDFs, Safari Bookmark/History, Call History, FaceTime History, etc.
- Screen Time Passcode, Wi-Fi Passcodes, Photo Vault Password, Chrome Password, etc.
- Attachments for Messages, WhatsApp, Notes, and WeChat.
- Downloaded documents in Files/iCloud Drive.
Pros
- Supports the latest iOS 13.5.1, 13.6 beta, and even the 14 beta.
- Recover deleted photos and videos, even from the broken or corrupted iPhone backup file.
- Recover forgotten password.
Cons
- It is not completely free.
- You can view only
3. Joyoshare iPhone Data Recovery Trail Version
Joyoshare is one of the excellent free iTunes backup viewers I found that people could use to access the contents and files from iTunes backup. This app runs on Windows and Mac to get all your iPhone backups saved on your computer, and help you preview and extract the contents on the backup compressed files.
And this could be very helpful if you don’t want to restore using the default method to spread out all files on your iPhone screen.
Supported file types:
Messages, Contacts, Call History, Notes, Calendars, Reminders, Safari, Voicemail, Photos, Voice Memos, App Photos, App Videos, App Document, WhatsApp, Viber, and Kik.
Pros:
- Supports both Windows and Mac computer to get iTunes backup.
- Works well to access in iOS 11 and iOS 12 backups.
- Find the locations of your local iPhone backup files.
- Can preview your personal info, media, docs, and SNS data on backups.
Cons:
- Can’t access the iCloud backup.
- It charges for extracting files from backup.
How Did I Test the Apps to View iPhone Backup?
I’ve reviewed some iPhone recovery software before. And I know that most of iPhone recovery apps are able to preview and extract contents from iPhone backup. Therefore I re-tested these apps and added some new ones, such as iMazing and Joyoshare, to have the test.
I’ve made several backups using my new iPhone XS and old iPhone 6 before starting the tests. Installed more than 10 backup extractor tools on a MacBook 2017 and a ThinkPad laptop to get the contents on my iTunes backup and iCloud backup.
And I checked whether the free version of these apps could access the data hidden in the backup files, and what data types it supports to view. There are two kinds of backup files that iPhone users use, the iTunes backup and iCloud backup. I tested the ability of these apps on browsing both of these backup types.