DowngradeiPad Air from iOS 10 to iOS 9.3.5?

[MikeElmendorf]

Good morning -

My son is using an old iPad that can't be upgraded beyond 9.3.5.

My wife just moved to a newer iPad, so I want to transfer his device over to her old one. However, I'd like to do a restore from his encrypted backup so everything carries over as it was--which means both devices need to be on the same iOS version.

So, I've been trying to downgrade the iPad Air to 9.3.5, but it is not working. I am getting a "Declined to authorize this image on this device for this user."

Any advice on how I can get this to work so I can do the restore?

Thanks.

 

[doogald]

You should be able to restore an older backup onto a newer version of the OS. You cannot do the opposite, however. If you were trying to restore a backup made from iOS 10.x to 9.3.5, it would give an error message that the restore cannot proceed.

You haven't said if you have tried this yet or not, but I would erase all settings from the iPad Air (settings / general / reset / Erase all contents and settings) and the go through the setup, and choose to restore from the iTunes backup when it comes up in the set up procedure.

 

[MikeElmendorf]

Hmmm, I did not think it would restore a backup from an older version. Although, perhaps in the past when I ran into that it was attempting to restore a backup from a newer iOS version. That would certainly make life easier; I'll give it a shot. Thanks.

 

[Just_Me_D]

Good morning -

My son is using an old iPad that can't be upgraded beyond 9.3.5.

My wife just moved to a newer iPad, so I want to transfer his device over to her old one. However, I'd like to do a restore from his encrypted backup so everything carries over as it was--which means both devices need to be on the same iOS version.

So, I've been trying to downgrade the iPad Air to 9.3.5, but it is not working. I am getting a "Declined to authorize this image on this device for this user."

Any advice on how I can get this to work so I can do the restore?

Thanks.

If the backup you’re trying to restore is from a device with a newer iOS version to a device with an older iOS version, the attempt will fail. For example. You cannot restore a backup made with iOS 10 to a device running iOS 9. You can, however, restore a backup made with iOS 9 to a device running iOS 10 which makes sense because if you want to buy a newer device running the newest iOS version, you want to easily be able to move your current data over to it.

 

[MikeElmendorf]

Well that makes life much easier, thanks. I've had the issue before with a new device that apparently wasn't on the latest version that wouldn't take the backup. I took that to mean that the backup and device needed to be on the same version. Appreciate the helpful replies.

 

[Just_Me_D]

Well that makes life much easier, thanks. I've had the issue before with a new device that apparently wasn't on the latest version that wouldn't take the backup. I took that to mean that the backup and device needed to be on the same version. Appreciate the helpful replies.

On behalf of doogald, you’re very welcome...