iPhone Backup Readiness Score
Updated .
This checklist scores how well you would survive losing your iPhone today. It weights the eight things that actually decide the outcome — whether a backup exists, whether it is recent, whether iCloud has room to finish one, and whether your account can be recovered — and returns a score with the specific gaps listed. A high score means a lost phone costs you a phone, not your photos.
How it works
The weights are not arbitrary. They reflect how much each item changes the outcome on the day something goes wrong, rather than how often it is mentioned in advice articles.
- iCloud Backup on (25) and a backup within 7 days (25) carry half the score between them, because everything else is damage limitation if no current backup exists. They are scored separately on purpose: a backup that is switched on but has not completed since February is the single most common failure, and scoring only the toggle would hide it.
- Enough iCloud storage (15) is scored highly because a full account is the usual reason a backup silently stops. It is the cause behind the symptom above it.
- Two-factor authentication (15) protects the account that controls the backup. A backup you can be locked out of is not a backup.
- Keychain, recovery contact, Find My, second copy (5 each) shorten recovery or cover a specific failure — an account lockout, a phone that could have been found, a photo deleted everywhere by sync.
Bands: 90+ resilient, 70–89 mostly covered, 40–69 fragile, under 40 exposed. The bands matter more than the exact number, because the score is a prompt to act rather than a measurement.
Worked example
Someone who believes they are covered because iCloud Backup has been on for years. They tick: iCloud Backup on (25), two-factor authentication (15), Keychain (5), Find My (5). They cannot tick a backup within 7 days, because the Last Successful Backup line reads five months ago; they cannot tick enough iCloud storage, because the account is full; and there is no recovery contact and no non-syncing copy.
Score: 50 / 100 — fragile. The gaps list names the cause and the symptom in order: free up iCloud storage, then get a backup to complete.
Twenty minutes of work follows — deleting re-downloadable app data from the backup, running a manual backup, adding a partner as recovery contact. Re-scoring gives 95 / 100 — resilient, with only the annual archive copy outstanding. The important part is what changed underneath: before, losing the phone would have cost five months of photos and messages; after, it costs a phone.
Frequently asked questions
What score should I aim for?
Anything at 90 or above means a lost or broken iPhone costs you hardware rather than data. Below 70 there is a specific gap that would cost you something, and the checklist names which one.
Why is a recent backup scored separately from having backup turned on?
Because the most common failure is a backup that is switched on but has not completed in months, usually due to full iCloud storage. Scoring only the toggle would hide exactly the problem this checklist exists to find.
Does iCloud Photos count as the second copy?
No. iCloud Photos is a sync service, so deleting a photo removes it everywhere once Recently Deleted empties. The second copy has to be somewhere that does not sync, such as a computer or an external drive.
Is a computer backup better than iCloud for this score?
Either satisfies the backup items, and the strongest position is both. iCloud runs nightly without you remembering, while a computer backup gives you a copy no account lockout can take away.
Want the briefing in your inbox?
The briefing is published on this site every morning. The email edition is not sending yet — leave your address and you’ll be among the first told when it starts. Nothing is sent in the meantime.