Set up iPhone as new iPhone without losing photos and messages

My second-hand iPhone 5 has been automatically shutting down even if its battery level is still at around 20%. I want to try one of the solutions other iPhone users recommend: resetting the iPhone, and then setting it up as a new iPhone. However, this would mean I will not be able to automatically recover some of the data on my phone.

Whenever I upgrade to a new iOS device, I do iCloud restore. It’s as easy as setting up a new or a newly doctored Palm webOS gadget. The problem with restoring from an iCloud backup is that it also restores old issues. I think it may also bring compatibility issues. Thus, the recommendation to set up as new, which of course introduces its own issues.

To know what I will lose and what I will be automatically restored, I did a factory reset of my iPhone 4S and then set it up as a new iPhone. I then logged in to my iCloud account, and checked each app for missing data. Here are the results:

• Text messages are gone.
• Most of the photos are also gone, except for the recent ones—these get saved on the Photo Stream.
• Videos are also gone, except those that I bought on iTunes.
• Notes saved on iCloud and Yahoo are back.
• Reminders saved on iCloud are OK.
• Contacts on saved iCloud are OK.

I found some solutions for the text messages and photo-video problem.

For photos, I have to import them to my device, and then sync them back to my iPhone.  This Apple support page shows how to do both.

As for the messages, I will follow this tutorial, which details how to back up and restore messages using a tool called iBackupBot.

Wish me luck!