When iTunes backs up your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, it saves all your important data into various files within the backup folder.
The filenames are encoded so they appear as strings of letters and numbers. It turns out, however, that for each version of the iPhone operating system (iOS), they're encoded in similar ways.
Here are some of the main files.
iOS 6 iPhone Backup File Locations
| Contents | Real Filename | Filename in Backup |
|---|
| SMS | sms.db | 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28 |
| Contacts | AddressBook.sqlitedb | 31bb7ba8914766d4ba40d6dfb6113c8b614be442 |
| Calendar | Calendar.sqlitedb | 2041457d5fe04d39d0ab481178355df6781e6858 |
| Reminders | Calendar.sqlitedb | 2041457d5fe04d39d0ab481178355df6781e6858 |
| Notes | notes.sqlite | ca3bc056d4da0bbf88b5fb3be254f3b7147e639c |
| Call hist. | call_history.db | 2b2b0084a1bc3a5ac8c27afdf14afb42c61a19ca |
| Locations | consolidated.db | Removed from iTunes backup, not iDevice |
iOS 5 iPhone Backup File Locations
| Contents | Real Filename | Filename in Backup |
|---|
| SMS | sms.db | 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28 |
| Contacts | AddressBook.sqlitedb | 31bb7ba8914766d4ba40d6dfb6113c8b614be442 |
| Calendar | Calendar.sqlitedb | 2041457d5fe04d39d0ab481178355df6781e6858 |
| Reminders | Calendar.sqlitedb | 2041457d5fe04d39d0ab481178355df6781e6858 |
| Notes | notes.sqlite | ca3bc056d4da0bbf88b5fb3be254f3b7147e639c |
| Call hist. | call_history.db | 2b2b0084a1bc3a5ac8c27afdf14afb42c61a19ca |
| Locations | consolidated.db | Removed from iTunes backup, not iDevice |
iOS 4 iPhone Backups
| Contents | Real Filename | Filename in Backup |
|---|
| SMS | sms.db | 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28 |
| Contacts | AddressBook.sqlitedb | 31bb7ba8914766d4ba40d6dfb6113c8b614be442 |
| Calendar | Calendar.sqlitedb | 2041457d5fe04d39d0ab481178355df6781e6858 |
| Notes | notes.sqlite | ca3bc056d4da0bbf88b5fb3be254f3b7147e639c |
| Call hist. | call_history.db | 2b2b0084a1bc3a5ac8c27afdf14afb42c61a19ca |
| Locations | consolidated.db | 4096c9ec676f2847dc283405900e284a7c815836 |
iOS 3 iPhone Backups
| Contents | Real Filename | Filename in Backup |
|---|
| SMS | sms.db | 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28 |
| Contacts | AddressBook.sqlitedb | 31bb7ba8914766d4ba40d6dfb6113c8b614be442 |
| Calendar | Calendar.sqlitedb | 2041457d5fe04d39d0ab481178355df6781e6858 |
| Notes | notes.db | 740b7eaf93d6ea5d305e88bb349c8e9643f48c3b |
| Call hist. | call_history.db | ff1324e6b949111b2fb449ecddb50c89c3699a78 |
iOS 2 iPhone Backups
| Contents | Real Filename | Filename in Backup |
|---|
| SMS | sms.db | 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28 |
| Contacts | AddressBook.sqlitedb | 31bb7ba8914766d4ba40d6dfb6113c8b614be442 |
| Calendar | Calendar.sqlitedb | 2041457d5fe04d39d0ab481178355df6781e6858 |
| Notes | notes.db | 740b7eaf93d6ea5d305e88bb349c8e9643f48c3b |
| Call hist. | call_history.db | ff1324e6b949111b2fb449ecddb50c89c3699a78 |
iOS 1 iPhone Backups
| Contents | Real Filename | Filename in Backup |
|---|
| SMS | sms.db | 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28 |
| Contacts | AddressBook.sqlitedb | adb8c77534444e97c31ff15924d50f3ed1fbd3b1 |
| Calendar | Calendar.sqlitedb | 14ee8cdc3e6e0220399ff210246e1c92b7df89a0 |
| Notes | notes.db | 740b7eaf93d6ea5d305e88bb349c8e9643f48c3b |
| Call hist. | call_history.db | a49bfab36504be1bf563c1d1813b05efd6076717 |
If you'd like an easier way to tell what's in your iPhone backup, we provide a tool that does all this decoding for you. Take a look at our iPhone Backup Extractor.
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