What's new in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.42 Build 10995

Dec 18, 2023
  • Improvement: Optimised the calendar extractor, large calendar backups should now be extracted significantly faster, over a hundred times faster in some cases!
  • Improvement iPhone Backup Extractor now has a brand new icon, we hope you love it as much as we do!
  • Fix: We've fixed a bug which prevented iPhone Backup Extractor from getting the right name for people in certain WhatsApp group chats.
  • Fix: We've fixed an issue which led to errors when downloading iCloud Photo Libraries for some accounts.
  • Fix: We've fixed an issue when extracting messages to PDF for users in certain time zones.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.40 Build 8353 (Nov 15, 2022)

  • Today's update to iPhone Backup Extractor brings a small fix to message extraction from iOS 16 backups and devices.
  • Fix Fixed an issue which meant no messages were being detected in data from iOS 16 backups and devices.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.39 Build 8339 (Oct 20, 2022)

  • Reworked the update mechanism to work with macOS Venturaโ€™s new security policy

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.37 Build 7596 (Oct 18, 2022)

  • Support for iOS 16 beta 1, this update fixes message extraction and will also make our messages extraction more reliable for future iOS versions and betas.
  • Fix Fixed a rare bug that was causing issues for some users when previewing messages.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.36 Build 7340 (May 25, 2022)

  • We've resolved a problem some trying to extract messages.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.34 Build 6078 (Feb 1, 2022)

  • Updated how we generate PDFs when extracting messages.
  • Fix Updated some security settings.
  • Fix Updated the tools used to build iPhone Backup Extractor on macOS.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.33 Build 4833 (Jul 1, 2021)

  • It's that time of year again, and to prepare for the forthcoming release of iOS 15 here's iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.33.4833 with full support for the very latest iOS 15 beta, along with some fixes for iOS 14.6:
  • Fix We've fixed an issue with extracting notes on iOS 14.6.
  • Fix Support for iOS 15 beta 2. This update fixes some issues with notes, voice memos, calendar, and messages extraction on iOS 15.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.31 Build 3350 (Oct 13, 2020)

  • Fixes:
  • We've added an experimental update to our ECG enabler for iOS 14 devices. The more feedback we get, the better. Let us know how you get on.
  • We've resolved a problem that was affecting a small number of Windows users creating backups on iOS 14.
  • We've resolved an unusual crash that was caused by untrusted devices connecting to Windows machines.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.30 Build 3252 (Oct 13, 2020)

  • Improvements:
  • We've added support for iOS 14-style threaded SMS messages. This is the default, and can be turned off by enabling "Forensics Mode" in Preferences.
  • We've made a number of improvements to how all sorts of messages are previewed in iPhone Backup Extractor. We show the date and sender of a message in a form much closer to that of the phone, and we've made message bubbles fit messages more neatly. We've also adjusted message spacing to look a lot better.
  • We've restored support for Viber on iOS 14.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.29 Build 3126 (Oct 13, 2020)

  • iPhone Backup Extractor can now create backups from iOS 14 devices when needed.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.28 Build 3077 (Oct 13, 2020)

  • Users connecting to iCloud could see a "WebException". This update resolves that.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.27 Build 3341 (Oct 13, 2020)

  • Feature iOS 14 beta support. Hurrah! We showing all messages in chronological order rather than using the new threaded format, but that'll be coming soon.
  • Improvement We've improved the user flow when a 2FA prompt is entered incorrectly whilst accessing iCloud.
  • Fix Extraction of content over 2.1 GB from USB-connected devices wasn't working. Now it is.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.26 Build 3007 (Oct 13, 2020)

  • Resolved issue for some users when connecting over USB.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.25 Build 2994 (Jun 11, 2020)

  • Fix We've hidden the overview and app view for Watch data; only "Expert mode" is now available for watches. We've also fixed expert mode โ€” in some cases, it was showing all files from the parent device. We've made these changes to make analysis of watch data more intuitive.
  • Fix Some users received a TaskCancelledException when downloading large files from iCloud Photo Library.
  • Fix Recovery of Screen Time passcodes wasn't working for some users on iOS 12. Now it is. Sorry for any inconvenience. iOS 13 unaffected.
  • Fix We've resolved the error some users might see on "Expert mode", where "Generated hash didn't match source" would appear.
  • Fix We've resolved a crash that could occur when extracting notes with strange characters in their folder names.
  • Fix Extraction of WhatsApp messages from iOS 5 or below could lead to problems. We've resolved that now.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.24 Build 2956 (Jun 10, 2020)

  • Improvement:
  • We're including a handful of additional iCloud enhancements, including restoring the ability to remember a password, restoring support for iOS 12 Screen Time recovery over iCloud, selection of the iCloud account after login, and better handling of expired sessions.
  • Fixes:
  • We've resolved a problem whereby cancelling extraction of data wasn't always possible. Now it is.
  • Extracting a lot of messages with Digital Touch drawings on Mac was sometimes failing. Now it works!
  • Sometimes connecting a USB device was throwing up an error. Now it won't.
  • Our sample backup data was sometimes showing the wrong device image when selected. All good now.
  • We've changed a few things behind the scenes to make other parts of iPhone Backup Extractor more robust.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.20 Build 2859 (Apr 22, 2020)

  • Feature Rather than showing information on a selected backup or device at the top of the app's window, we now show it in a new vertical column. We've made this change because we think it makes the app more intuitive, flowing from one side of the screen to the other, and because it frees up screen space for us to ship some of the features in our plan for the year. It harks back a little to an earlier incarnation of the app's design.
  • Improvement We've taken the time to pretty-up our "Expert mode" and "Information" panes, and we've renamed "App view" to preview. We've got a further follow-up planned for the interface in the near future, and this has set us up well for it.
  • Improvement We've disabled two instructional message overlays about iCloud and extraction time that we thought weren't helpful on balance.
  • Improvement We've removed the Hike Post previewer, but kept support for Hike Messages. If you find yourself still needing to export Hike Posts, please reach out to us.
  • Fix We've resolved an issue on Windows whereby rictl wouldn't show battery percentages for connected devices.
  • Fix Sometimes device images wouldn't show properly on Windows. They do now.
  • Fix We've resolved an issue whereby scrolling the Information view on macOS someones wouldn't work. Now it does.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.18 Build 2699 (Apr 8, 2020)

  • We resolved the "invalid operation" error that might have popped up when working with iCloud

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.17 Build 2690 (Mar 17, 2020)

  • It's been an unusual while since our last update, hasn't it? 3 weeks. You'd be forgiven for thinking we were up to something, and we are. We've been laying the groundwork for a reworked feature, and you should get to see that in the next week or so. In the meantime, we're shipping an improvement to our Screen Time passcode removal and ECG activation processes, making them easier than ever to use.
  • Improvement Tweaks to the Screen Time passcode removal and ECG activation processes: after your phone reboots, it won't show the skippable setup prompt that it used to show.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.16 Build 2610 (Feb 20, 2020)

  • Feature Encrypted notes from iOS 10 or above are now supported on Windows. We shipped support for these on macOS in the prior release.
  • Improvement We now show the time at which a backup was created at the top of the backup info pane, making life easier for users with a lot of backups created close to each other. Of course, the left-hand navigation still shows them in the other they were taken.
  • Fix We've made a lot of improvements to extraction of unusual notes.
  • Fix We've straightened out how Apple Watch backups are shown, dealing with the unknown.
  • Fix We've resolved an issue when extracting or previewing WeChat messages with special characters.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.13 Build 2564 (Jan 30, 2020)

  • Improvement iPhone Backup Extractor will be much faster when it comes to counting your data in the overview. More to come here.
  • Fix We've resolved a rather strange issue whereby some messages from the sender would end up grouped in an "unknown" conversation. Sorry about that.
  • Fix We've resolved another issue affecting iOS 4 users. That's 2 fixes for iOS 4 in as many weeks. In 2020! Who'd have thought it?
  • Fix We've fixed a bug where the message previewer was sometimes getting the counts wrong when they were all selected.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.9 Build 2510 (Jan 9, 2020)

  • Improvement We've changed how we display the differences between the free and paid editions of iPhone Backup Extractor within the app. The language and interface we use now is hopefully clearer and simpler โ€” and looks a good deal more modern.
  • Improvement We've improved the dialogs that a user gets when running into any sort of overcapacity issue with their activations or devices.
  • Improvement We've removed a few assets from the app that weren't used, reducing its size when installed.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.8 Build 2467 (Dec 13, 2019)

  • Feature It's now possible to open files directly from "Expert mode": just right-click and choose "Open file". This makes life a lot easier when exploring large backups for data.
  • Feature "Expert mode" now makes it possible for users to remove folders and their contents.
  • Feature We've added support for pulling live device info using the rictl command.
  • Fix We've resolved an issue where image captions weren't shown when previewing messages.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.6 Build 2400 (Dec 4, 2019)

  • Feature Device management commands are now available in iPhone Backup Extractor's command-line tool, rictl. Users can now script and perform device discovery, backup, shutdown and restart using rictl. This functionality is available over USB and Wi-Fi for Windows users, and USB only for macOS users. We're expecting to ship Wi-Fi support for macOS shortly, and we'll be adding more functionality to rictl in subsequent releases.
  • Feature The built-in rictl tool's backup info command now provides a password hash for encrypted backups in the classic $itunes_backup$* format that hashcat uses.
  • Fix Group chat participants weren't always shown correctly in the Messages data, and we've now fixed this.
  • Fix We've resolved an issue affecting previews of large images from the sample backup.
  • Fix We've made extraction of rich contact data more reliable; it was leading to a crash in some rare cases.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.5 Build 2296 (Oct 24, 2019)

  • Feature Removal of unknown Screen Time passcodes on iOS 13. ๐ŸŽ‰
  • Improvement We've made a few minor tweaks to the layout of the Preferences window.
  • Improvement Images on the welcome screen are now even crisper on macOS.
  • Fix We no longer count folders as well as files when extracting content in "Expert mode". This led to numbers varying across the app, depending on how we were doing the count.
  • Fix In some cases, phone numbers and email addresses which shared address book labels were missed in the preview and in CSV exports. This is now resolved.
  • Fix We've fixed a bug that caused handles in WhatsApp group chats not to display (or to display incorrectly) in certain situations.
  • Fix When extracting multiple conversations to PDF, each conversation file wasn't always starting at page 1. This is now resolved.
  • Fix We've fixed a rare edge-case whereby the presence of HEIC files was causing extraction of photos to fail.
  • Fix We've resolved an issue where iMessages weren't always shown in chronological order.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.4 Build 2207 (Sep 19, 2019)

  • Fixes crash in yesterday's build, triggered by Screen Time recovery, app view or expert mode extraction.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.7.0 Build 2112 (Aug 16, 2019)

  • We've been gearing up for our 7.7 release, and here it is: today we're shipping a big new feature in iPhone Backup Extractor: command-line support. iPhone Backup Extractor is now bundled with a free command-line tool named rictl for working with iOS backups and devices. โœ๏ธ
  • Feature rictl released and shipped with iPhone Backup Extractor for command-line access to iOS backups and devices. Check out its documentation to learn more. You can get started with the new Scripting menu in Preferences.
  • Feature iPhone Backup Extractor will now let you change or remove your iPhone backup password. You can do this with Utilities โ†’ Change backup password.
  • Improvement Voicemail CSV exports now use ROWID instead of remote_uid after user requests. We hope this helps!

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.6.17 Build 2042 (Jul 4, 2019)

  • Improvement: We've made some changes to how we handle password validation on backups made from iOS 10.2 and newer. Yes, that includes iOS 13.
  • Feature: We're including a major hidden feature that we're going to be inviting some of our beta testers to try out. If you'd like to be one of them please let us know! We're expecting everyone will be getting access to this in the coming weeks.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.6.14 Build 1866 (Jun 7, 2019)

  • Improvement: We've made some changes to how we prepare iPhone Backup Extractor for distribution. And now we've distributed those changes to you. Hurrah!
  • Fix: We show the macOS permissions dialog more frequently, rather than failing when permission is unavailable. Makes sense, right?
  • Fix: We've resolved a problem whereby a user on a fresh install of macOS with no backups would get a nonsense "Accessing backup failed" message when they ran iPhone Backup Extractor for the first time.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.6.13 Build 1841 (May 2, 2019)

  • IMPROVEMENT:
  • Screen Time passcode recovery is now much faster in a number of different ways. Happy days!
  • IMPROVEMENT:
  • We've tweaked the icons shown in iPhone Backup Extractor's overview to be more appropriately sized on Windows.
  • FIX:
  • We've found we degraded the info view that was shown for a backup. We've correctly restored some of that information, and there's more to come.
  • FIX:
  • It's niche, but we care: we there was a bug for SMS and contacts extraction from iOS 1, 2 and 3 backups. Fixed now! Similarly, we've resolved a problem for WhatsApp extraction that was affecting iOS 5 and iOS 7 backups.
  • FIX:
  • We've improved accuracy on recovered note dates.
  • FIX:
  • We no longer create a temporary folder with a misspelling in its name. ๐Ÿ™„
  • FIX:
  • Some users were getting error 0x64 when trying to a recover a Screen Time passcode after a device had been reset (with "Erase all content and settings. We've solved that.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.6.11 Build 1757 (Apr 25, 2019)

  • Fix Invalid symlinks in the backup path are handled properly.
  • Fix Screen Time passcode recovery works for devices which hadn't made a backup before. We'd introduced a problem here in the prior build. Sorry.
  • Fix We've tweaked the wording on the "welcome" screen, and adjusted a few pixels.
  • Fix We've zapped duplicate recovered notes; you shouldn't see them now, and we've also improved the accuracy of notes recovery.
  • Fix We've resolved an issue in exports of KML location data. Google Earth Pro loves our exports now.
  • Fix We handle changing the default iTunes backup location better now, when another process has locked the folder.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.6.10 Build 1734 (Apr 17, 2019)

  • Feature: Who'd have thunk it? iPhone Backup Extractor can now create backups for you, and you don't need iTunes. If you also run iTunes, you'll see we create these in "archived" format. Of course, you can still do everything you normally would with them.
  • Improvement: Screen Time passcode recovery is now even faster. Lucky you!
  • Fix: We've improved the way we monitor for changes to backups. In particular, this prevents a crash that could happen in some cases.
  • Fix: We handle device disconnection better when it occurs during a backup.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.6.9 Build 1708 (Apr 17, 2019)

  • Feature: We've added "restart" and "shutdown" commands for devices in the "Utilities" pane
  • Improvement We've reworked a fair bit of how we handle USB connections to devices; if something goes wrong, the app will be much clearer about what's happened.
  • Improvement: Improved handling of Screen Time passcode recovery. Similar to the above, if something goes wrong, we'll explain more clearly.
  • Improvement: We've simplified how we show licensing options to users.
  • Improvement: We've updated the sample backup included with iPhone Backup Extractor.
  • Fix: We broke scrolling in the left-hand navigation in the last build. Sorry. This update fixes that!

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.6.8 Build 1690 (Apr 17, 2019)

  • Feature Easily change your iTunes backup folder if you run out of disk space or wish to store your backups on another drive.
  • Fix We've added a minor patch for WhatsApp and contacts extraction.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.6.7 Build 1676 (Mar 21, 2019)

  • Improvements:
  • We've tidied up the left-hand navigation bar and added a nice clear "Add data" button to the top of the app's window. This lets you add iCloud accounts or iTunes backup search locations. Convenient, eh?
  • We've sped up the transition in and out of "Forensics mode". If you want to see for yourself, this is an option you can enable in preferences.
  • Where iCloud note attachments can't be recovered, we explain why.
  • We've added support for location attachments in

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.6.7 Build 1646 (Mar 18, 2019)

  • Improvement: We've improved how we detect USB issues so that this doesn't happen again, and is better handled if anything odd happens.
  • Fix: Prevented the app from crashing when connecting a new USB device under some circumstances.
  • Fix: Solved a crash when timing out connecting to a USB device.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.6.7 Build 1631 (Mar 18, 2019)

  • Improvement: Contact photos are now shown in the contacts previewer. Happy day!
  • Improvement: USB devices now display with a pane making it clearer a backup is required for data access, with Screen Time passcode recovery moved to the new "Utilities" pane.
  • Improvement: The Screen Time passcode recover wizard will automatically close when the device disconnects.
  • Improvement: When "Forensics mode" is enabled, each message will display both the sender and the verbose date it was sent.
  • Fix: We've resolved a nasty crash bug affecting untrusted iOS 7 devices.
  • Fix: We've resolved some weirdness that could be encountered by toggling "Forensics mode" on and off whilst previewing messages. Not all weirdness is a good thing.
  • Fix: We've fixed a bug with message attachments when being exported into HTML. Caused a problem with some location data for some users.
  • Fix: Fixed a crash if there's a space at the end of your iCloud username. I mean, really? Who doesn't have a space at the end of their iCloud account?

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.6.6 Build 1575 (Mar 7, 2019)

  • Feature: iPhone Backup Extractor now exports notes into a lovely PDF format, replacing the HTML format we previously used. PDF works better for preserving the flow of your notes, and we're able to present attachments and embedded data in a more coherent way.
  • Feature: Externally-hosted notes are now exported. Store your iPhone's notes in Gmail? Not a problem.
  • Feature: Call history previewers and exports now include bandwidth used in Facetime calls.
  • Improvement: Forensics mode now applies a number of formatting changes to notes, and uses an unambiguous date format across the board.
  • Improvement: CSV exports of contacts now have better-formatted numbers and contact names, and we've added call types.
  • Improvement: PDF exports of messages have been enhanced to resemble iPhone messages more closely.
  • Fix: Our note previewer now shows the full note body along with modification dates.
  • Fix: Messages with image attachments sometimes included curious null bytes. We've whacked them. Whack!

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.5.8 Build 1874 (Nov 29, 2018)

  • Works with all iOS 11 iTunes and iCloud data and below.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 7.2.4.1299 (Sep 7, 2016)

  • Launching a complete new redesign of our app interface for Windows; iOS 9.3.4 beta and iOS 10 support for iCloud & iTunes (incl. encrypted) and Photo Stream recovery; Improved groups messages extraction;

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 6.0.7.826 (May 17, 2016)

  • iOS 9.3 beta iCloud & iTunes (incl. password protected) support; Previews for offline iTunes backups; iOS 9.3 beta Photo Stream recovery; Photo extraction grouped to albums; Improved SMS attachments extraction; Improved Viber and WeChat extraction; Improved CPU usage while downloading data.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 5.9.0.642 (Sep 26, 2015)

  • iCloud Photo Stream support
  • iOS 9 included
  • iOS 9 iTunes backup support
  • New apps support for Kik, WeChat, Viber and Snapchat
  • HTML generation included
  • Fixed Addressbook contacts match in WhatsApp
  • Added extraction of WhatsApp group convo
  • Fixed SMS count
  • Fixed parsing
  • Contact birthday info

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 5.7.2.322 (Jun 8, 2015)

  • Support for iOS 8.3 iTunes and iCloud backups
  • Fix for random iCloud login issues
  • iCloud download speed enhancements

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 5.3.18.0 (Dec 17, 2014)

  • Fix for 'App View' crash Fix for iTunes encrypted backup loading issue
  • Fix for SMS attachments extraction with iOS 8 backups
  • Improved user experience with full support for iOS 8 iTunes and iCloud backups iCloud download speed enhancements

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 4.1.3 (May 23, 2013)

  • iTunes backups - iPhone, iPad, iTouch

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 4.0.0 (Aug 16, 2012)

  • Works on all iOS (inc iOS6)
  • Professional version available for full encrypted backup support

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 3.3.8 (May 12, 2012)

  • Works on all iOS (inc 5.1.0), iTunes backups - iPhone, iPad, iTouch
  • Improved Export/Import contacts as CSV.
  • Works with Gmail and Outlook.
  • Extended Calendar including Timezone data and Recurrences.
  • Improved language support for ICAL and extracted file names.
  • Works for file names with diacritics.

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 3.3.3 (Mar 8, 2012)

  • Fixed UID for calendars and added recurrences count and end date.
  • Getting contacts from "recent contacts" (email or phone).

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 3.3.2 (Feb 27, 2012)

  • Works on all iOS (inc 5.0.1), iTunes backups - iPhone, iPad, iTouch Improved Export/Import contacts as CSV. Works with Gmail and Outlook
  • Extended Calendar including Timezone data and Recurrences
  • Improved language support for ICAL and extracted file names
  • Works for file names with diacritics

New in iPhone Backup Extractor 3.2.4 (Nov 18, 2011)

  • Updated contacts, SMS and notes for iOS 5 databases
  • Support for iMessages when extracting SMS
  • Auto-detect new date formats which are changeable in iOS 5
  • Extended data parsing for iOS 5 calendars
  • Extended regional language formatting