Frequently Asked Questions

General Information

Broadly speaking, to expand the capabilities between your Mac or PC and iOS devices, especially your data on them and how the devices can be managed.

iMazing includes a range of features that fill important gaps in Apple’s own software:

  • Scheduled local backups with snapshots (preserves backup states over time)
  • Backup to custom locations, including external drives an NAS, perfect for families or businesses wanting to backup their devices to locally to a single computer
  • Export messages with metadata in a printer-friendly format (SMS, MMS, iMessage, WhatsApp)
  • Versatile media management: Copy music and videos to or from devices and your computer
  • Easy file management: Use your Apple device like an external drive, transfer files anywhere
  • Advanced iOS Management: Configuration Profiles, Supervision, Single App Mode
  • 100% of all data is stored locally with all processing done by your computer. No data is transferred to iMazing servers nor any cloud. You are always in full control of your device and data.

Many people find or use iMazing for a specific task, with popular ones listed in the next answer, while many others, especially business customers, use iMazing regularly.

iMazing has been developed since the iPhone first debuted in 2007, and we remain fully invested in ensuring that it remains simply the best local iPhone manager on the market.

(It also works great with iPads and iPod touches, of course!)

iMazing is an app for macOS and Windows that enables you to manage your iOS devices and the data contained on them at a level of detail and control beyond what Apple supports out of the box. Key features include:

  • iPhone manager: backup and restore, transfer data to, export data from, reinstall iOS, and more.
  • Connect your device to your computer via USB or local Wi-Fi network. All data remains securely stored locally, no data is transferred to any servers.
  • Export or print messages, including media from SMS, MMS, iMessage, and WhatsApp.
  • Retrieve attachments from messages.
  • Browse and transfer photos from your device to your computer.
  • Transfer music between your devices and computer. Copy to and from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod and Mac or PC. Copy from iPod classic/mini/nano and iPod shuffle.
  • Schedule and centralize your backups. Configure your iOS and iPadOS devices to automatically back up to a single computer, including to an external hard drive or NAS.
  • Browse and export data from your iPhone or iPad backups. Including backups created by Finder (Mac), iTunes (Mac or Windows), or Apple Devices (Windows).
  • Install and manage apps previously purchased from the Apple Store, even if they are no longer available in the store.
  • Transfer files from your computer to your device, including with iMazing Quick Transfer, a cross-platform solution that’s faster and easier than AirDrop.
  • Transfer data to your new iPhone or iPad with flexibility beyond Apple’s migration options.
  • Install and manage configuration profiles, supervise devices, enable single app mode (kiosk), and more
  • Export every type of data from your device to your computer.

And more...

iMazing is the best solution for consumer or enterprise users who want to locally manage their devices or access and export data from their iOS devices, without relying on iCloud or other Apple's apps: iTunes / Finder / Apple Devices.

iMazing offers a wide range of features not available by default in Apple's environment.

iMazing is also the oldest and most advanced iPhone manager for macOS and Windows. The DigiDNA team in charge of its development since the first version was released in 2008 is renowned for being the world's leading experts in iOS device management.

iMazing is developed 100% in Switzerland. Its quality, reliability and consistency go far beyond what other competitors are capable of offering.

What are 'iTunes Alternatives' and why are they needed?

No, iMazing is available for Mac and Windows and allows you to manage and access your Apple mobile device and access its data from your computer.

Download iMazing for macOS or Windows.

  • iMazing 2 (Mac): macOS 10.10 or newer
  • iMazing 3 (Mac): macOS 10.11 or newer
  • iMazing 2 or 3 (Window): Windows 7 or newer

Have a look to iMazing Tech Specs for more details.

  • iPhone: All models
  • iPad: All models
  • iPod touch: All models

Devices running very old iOS versions, especially before version 5, may not be able to access all features.

Have a look to iMazing Tech Specs for more details.

  • iPod classic/nano/mini: Support for copying music from iPods to a computer.
  • iPod shuffle: Support on Windows only.

iMazing currently doesn’t support transferring media files to non-iOS devices. Use Apple’s software (iTunes / Finder / Apple Devices) to copy music to your iPod.

No. iMazing will offer to download the Apple drivers needed to communicate with iOS devices if necessary.

Absolutely not, iMazing does not alter your device in any way.

iMazing is developed by DigiDNA, a registered Apple developer. The Mac version of iMazing is notarized by Apple and code-signed with an Apple developer-issued certificate.

Verify iMazing's authenticity.

No, iMazing has nothing to do with jailbreaking.

Yes, iMazing respects Apple security mechanisms from end to end so that your device and data remain secured.

Learn more about iMazing security & privacy.

No. iMazing simply provides you with access to your data on devices you own.

iMazing does not circumvent Digital Rights Management (DRM) file protections.

iMazing cannot be used to “sideload” apps, nor can it install any apps on your devices that are not already tied to your Apple account.

We take digital rights and privacy very seriously:

Not at this time. iMazing is only compatible with Apple devices, sorry.

iMazing Trial

Yes, and many features are free, no purchase needed, like Quick Transfer and app management.

Download iMazing.

Everything is accessible, but we restrict the amount of items which you can transfer (see list).

You can use iMazing without restriction to back up your devices, but are limited only to the standard restore option with the free version (accessed via iMazing Mini). Advanced backup options are only available in the full version.

DatasetNb of items
File Transfer100
Media (Music & TV)50
Photos50
Safari Data20
Messages25
WhatsApp25
Contacts10
Calendars10
Books5
Call History5
Notes5
Voice Memos3
Voicemail1
Extract/Edit backup files10

You may purchase a license from our online store or from within iMazing itself (either from the Trial window or the License menu).

Your license code will subsequently be emailed to you.

Please note: the iMazing Configurator feature set is for businesses only and requires one of the following: an iMazing Business - Device License, iMazing Business - Subscription, or iMazing Configurator (Seat-based) license, learn more here.

No. After purchasing a license, you will receive your license code to unlock iMazing’s full capabilities.

iMazing Licenses

For consumers, iMazing offers two license types:

  1. iMazing Personal - Device License (Perpetual)
    • “Device” is defined as an iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV or Apple Vision Pro
    • Unlimited use of iMazing for the life of the device
    • Unlimited tech support and free updates for the life of the device
    • Device slots cannot be revoked once assigned to a device
    • For lost or broken Apple mobile devices, please contact our support team immediately with the details. We trust our users and will quickly handle legitimate requests
    • Additional device slots can be purchased any time as needed
    • Install iMazing on as many computers as you like (Mac or PC); your license is limited by the number of Apple mobile device slots availabled
    • One-time purchase

  2. iMazing Personal - Subscription
    • Unlimited use of iMazing with up to 20 Apple mobile devices per year
    • Unlimited tech support and updates during your subscription
    • Install iMazing on as many computers as you like (Mac or PC); your license is limited by the number of Apple mobile device slots available
    • Renews annually
 Personal - Device LicensePersonal Subscription
License TypeLifetimeAnnual
# of Apple Mobile Devices you can connectLimited *Up to 20
Can devices be unlinked from your license?NoDevices not connected to iMazing in the last 9 months are automatically unlinked from the license to free up device slots.
# of computers you can install iMazing onUnlimitedUnlimited
Future iMazing UpdatesFree ForeverFree Forever
SupportFree ForeverFree Forever

* additional can be purchased if needed.

Most iMazing customers are best suited with the device-based license, which provides you with unlimited use of iMazing, including all future updates, for the life of your Apple iOS or iPadOS device.

Power users with many devices or families looking to backup every device in their household may prefer purchasing an iMazing subscription that works with up to 20 devices per year, and allows iMazing to be installed on an unlimited number of computers.

 Business Device LicenseBusiness Subscription
License TypeLifetimeAnnual
# of Apple Mobile Devices you can connectLimited *Limited *
Can devices be unlinked from your license?NoDevices not connected to iMazing in the last 90 days are automatically unlinked from the license to free up device slots.
# of computers you can install iMazing onUnlimitedUnlimited
iMazing CLIIncludedIncluded
iMazing ConfiguratorIncludedIncluded
iMazing AccountIncludedIncluded
Future iMazing UpdatesFree ForeverFree Forever
Priority SupportFree ForeverFree Forever

We also make tools designed for system administrators and advanced IT professionals which as of November 2023 are included at no additional cost with iMazing Business - Device License and iMazing Business - Subscription License products:

  • iMazing Configurator - Powerful tools to help sys admins provision fleets of Apple mobile devices; define advanced blueprints & configure devices in bulk. Works great with the freely available iMazing Profile Editor.
  • iMazing CLI - Exhaustive command line interface for advanced interaction with iOS devices and backups.
  • iMazing Account - The iMazing Account platform enables the management of iMazing licenses within an organization and the assignment of these licenses to users or clients. Soon, it will offer advanced features such as the ability to remotely configure and customize iMazing, delegate tasks to users, and guide them through tasks, providing a comprehensive, streamlined experience. These new features will be available later this year.

The primary reason is that we wanted to eliminate paid major updates, allowing our customers to enjoy new iMazing new features as soon as they're ready. We discuss the iMazing license model in a dedicated blog post.

Our licensing model is designed to eliminate the need for paid major upgrades. Linking a specific iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV, or Apple Vision Pro device to your license is permanent and cannot be undone. Licensed devices can be used with all iMazing updates (including major versions), for their entire lifetime, on any Mac or PC computer. However, if your Apple device is lost or broken, iMazing fails to complete an expected task with a specific device, or you've mistakenly linked a device to your license, please contact our support team immediately with the details. We value our users and promptly address legitimate concerns.

As of November 2023:

  • iMazing Phone Evidence has been replaced with the iMazing Business - Device License (same product and price, just a different name).
  • iMazing Station is no longer for sale (existing customers can continue to renew their license).
  • iMazing Configurator and iMazing CLI are now included at no additional cost with all iMazing Business - Device License and iMazing Business - Subscription products.
  • Unlimited Devices (Personal) has been replaced with the Personal Subscription.

No, you will need to purchase one of our current iMazing Business products, which includes those features at no additional cost. Please contact our enterprise sales team should you need assistance with this.

No, your license is valid for either platform.

Follow this link and we’ll send it to you right away.

For computer-based licenses like the iMazing Unlimited Devices license, you can remove your license from the iMazing main menu License > Remove License.

If you need to remove a computer from your license that you don’t have access to anymore, please contact our support team.

By design, devices linked to your device-based iMazing license cannot be removed.

In this way, iMazing is different from other device-based license models, like VPN services, which limit devices to restrict concurrent use. (See the next question to read why.)

That said, we understand misfortune can strike and are certainly not interested in profiting from such an event. If your Apple device is lost or broken, please contact our support team for assistance with your license.

Historically, desktop software like iMazing has been developed around the concept of paid upgrades, whereby every few years a substantial new version is released that requires existing users to pay an upgrade fee to obtain the latest features and compatibility.

Beginning in 2020, iMazing adopted a “continuous release” development cycle, which sees new features pushed out as they become available. We believe firmly that this results in a better experience for all users, as opposed to withholding improvements for months or years in the name of a future paid upgrade. iMazing also requires constant maintenance to ensure compatibility with all OS and device updates.

Most companies who have pursued this path have followed suit by adopting subscription-based licensing models to replace the future revenue they could expect from paid upgrades.

For a software company, subscriptions are appealing as they generate more consistent and predictable revenue.

But we fully understand and appreciate that consumers accustomed to perpetual software licenses or who only use an app occasionally can be turned off by subscription models.

As a result, we developed our own, novel device-based licensing system that simply ties the price of iMazing to the number of devices you’re using it with.

  • This provides casual users who only replace their iPhone every few years with a reasonable price point to always use the latest version of iMazing as much as they want.
  • While power users enjoy lower unit pricing depending on how many device slots they purchase at a time.

At the same time, if you prefer subscriptions or simply never want to hassle with hitting a device limit, we also offer an Unlimited Devices subscription.

We adopted our current licensing model, described above, in October 2020. This model eliminated paid upgrades.

Customers with a legacy license, purchased before that date, need to pay for major version releases.

iMazing 1 and 2 customers can upgrade to iMazing 3 at a 50% discount.

Beginning with iMazing 3, all legacy customers who upgrade will transition to our new license policy, which includes free updates forever.

If your license code starts with id, it's a legacy license.

Legacy licenses are tied to a specific iMazing version, newer licenses starting with imz are not.

Only if you choose to upgrade to iMazing 3.

Your license will continue to work with iMazing 2, although future support for iMazing 2 will be limited and no longer maintained following the release of iOS 18, expected in September 2024.

Using iMazing

iOS and iPadOS devices are very secure: most of your data is not accessible directly.

As a result, iMazing relies on a local backup of your device in order to access its contents.

While some iMazing operations, like file transfers, do not need your device to be backed up, many others do, including reading message history, call history, notes, contacts, or voicemails.

iMazing employs the exact same, Apple-engineered backupagent for its backups as Apple uses for Finder (Mac), iTunes (Mac/Windows), or Apple Devices (Windows) backups.

iMazing is also fully compatible with local backups initiated with one of Apple’s tools.

While Apple limits you to only 1 local backup for each device (its exact state when it was last backed up), iMazing uniquely supports multiple backups per device, also called snapshots.

This enables you to retrieve or restore data that might have been deleted between backups.

For example: you delete the conversation you had with a contractor from your phone after their job is done, but discover months later you need to reference it. Thanks to iMazing, you have weekly backups of your device and can easily retrieve that conversation from a previous backup. If you know macOS Time Machine, iMazing backups work similarly.

Since iMazing employs the same protocol as Apple, your first full backup with iMazing should be the exact same size as had Finder/iTunes/Apple Devices initiated the backup.

If you have enabled support for multiple backups with iMazing (“snapshots”), subsequent backups will only consume as much space as the new data on the device contains.

In other words, while your first backup could need 100GB (or more), subsequent snapshots could be less than 1GB.

For most users, new photos and videos captured with their device is often the biggest difference between the size of the backups.

Short of actually attempting a backup, the best way to gauge how much space you need is to examine how much storage your device is currently using.

You can find this by looking on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch under:

Setting > General > iPhone Storage

At the top, your iPhone will report how much space is used on the device. As long as you have that much drive space available on your computer, you should be fine.

(That number represents more than you will need for a backup since system files, music, apps, and cached files are not included with Apple mobile device backups.)

iMazing includes a feature called Data Access Only that can require much less computer drive space than a full backup of your device. (The difference is determined primarily based on the number of photos and videos on the device.)

When iMazing prompts you to back up your device, please try using Data Access Only instead of Full Backup.

If your computer continues to lack the available drive space needed to use iMazing, you may need to purchase an external hard drive if you are unable to free up enough space on your computer.

Fortunately, with iMazing it’s very easy to backup your devices to external drives!

Important Note: Data Access Only is not a backup of your device, nor can the data be restored to a device. It is simply for extracting data from your device to your computer, it is not a replacement for a backup.

This depends primarily on how much storage your device is presently using. A nearly new iPhone will take just a couple minutes, while a device with 1TB of storage might take as long as 2 hours or more.

The main bottleneck is Apple’s Lightning connector, which is limited to USB 2.0 speeds, even with Apple’s USB-C to Lightning cable. USB 2.0 is more than 20 years old and maxes out at 480Mbps.

iPad users connecting their device via USB-C or Thunderbolt will enjoy roughly 10x faster backup speeds than iPhones or iPads connected via Lightning. Secondary factors that can impact the speed of your backup include:

  • The speed and connection of the destination drive your device is being backed up to.
  • The speed and connection type between your computer and your Apple device when connected via Wi-Fi rather than a cable.
  • If you are using antivirus software that scans your computer in real-time; Apple mobile device backups contain literally tens of thousands of files, which can create bottlenecks with antivirus software that slows your computer.

Read more about backups in this dedicated guide.

iMazing Mini is iMazing’s sidekick, a lightweight app that puts many capabilities just a click away. Mini is a Menu Bar app on macOS or a System Tray app on Windows. Its use is entirely optional, unless you are using iMazing’s scheduled backups, as Mini powers that capability.

Learn more about iMazing Mini.

iOS devices are not like USB keys or external drives: their file system is not entirely accessible from a computer. This is why using a tool such as iMazing unlocks so much potential: iMazing does a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes to present you with well formatted, easy to understand data, pulling it from services running on the device and from a backup of the device.

We have a very comprehensive set of guides designed to help you make the most of iMazing here.

Security & Privacy

Absolutely not!-

We firmly believe that your data belongs to you. None of your data is ever transmitted to or stored on any servers.

All the data on your device remains on your device.

Backups of your device are stored locally on your computer at the location you choose from iMazing and can be encrypted (which we strongly recommend).

iMazing cache files are stored in the default system locations, and can be easily cleared from iMazing’s settings.

Launch iMazing and open iMazing Settings:

  1. Select Reset to Factory Settings, then quit iMazing
  2. Uninstall iMazing
    • Mac: Drag iMazing from your Applications folder to the trash, then empty the trash
    • Windows: Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features > Select iMazing and click Uninstall

Please note: You may also want to delete the pairing records between your Apple mobile devices and your computer, which can be done from: iMazing Preferences > Devices > Remove All Pairing Records.

If you plan to continue to use your device with your computer but without iMazing, you do not need to do this.

For security questions related to iMazing, please refer to our Security & Privacy page.

For information about our website and services, see our Privacy Policy.

Customer Support

Please visit iMazing Support and review our troubleshooting guides for common issues.

You may also submit a ticket to our support team. We typically answer all requests within 24 hours.

Our dedicated in-house team is happy to assist you with any questions!

Sorry, no. As we are a small firm with customers worldwide, it is impossible for us to provide phone support.

DigiDNA has always been headquartered in beautiful Geneva, Switzerland.

All of our products are developed in Switzerland exclusively.

We are proud of our Swiss heritage and champions of its values, especially integrity and privacy.