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On iOS 9, after restoring from a backup, a screen comes up that says "slide to upgrade."

slide to upgrade

This doesn't update your iOS firmware, right? I imagine it just prepares your backup for iOS 9. Is this correct? I have scoured Apple's support articles, Reddit, and the likes. All I can find is information about a bug related to the slide to upgrade screen.

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    I'm actually not entirely sure. I went from a iPhone 4s running iOS 7 (and backups of that) to an iPhone 5s running iOS 8, and it forced me to upgrade to iOS 9. I would be wary, as you may find yourself suddenly running a version of iOS you didn't expect to. I'm not adding this as an answer as I don't really know, and this is just speculation based on my personal experience.
    – JMY1000
    Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 3:34

3 Answers 3

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I just bought an iPhone SE. It came pre-installed with iOS 9.3.2. I set it up from an iPhone 5s iOS 8.1 iTunes backup. When the restore was complete, I was greeted with the "slide to upgrade" message. I slid it, and a loading bar with the Apple logo was displayed. When it was finished loading, a message appeared saying "upgrade complete." When the setup was finished, I went into Settings; it was still on iOS 9.3.2. It is now asking me to update to iOS 9.3.3.

Thus, "slide to upgrade" does not update your iOS firmware to the latest version, it likely just prepares the old backup data for use with with iOS 9.

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Great question! For anyone worried about this I want to confirm that "Slide to upgrade" does NOT update iOS (Apple really should change that message to avoid misunderstandings).

My iPhone X was on 12.4.1, and I just restored from a backup from iTunes and got the same "Slide to upgrade" message. At the time of restore 12.4.1 wasn't signed (only iOS 13.1.2 and 13.1.3 was).

And after doing "Slide to upgrade" my device was still on iOS 12.4.1.

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  • Can I ask how the message of this answer differs from this one?
    – user327795
    Commented Oct 26, 2019 at 9:18
  • I had the same question and so checked this thread and noticed the answer was 3 years old and referred to iOS 9.X. So I wasn't sure if things had changed (and wouldn't want to mess up my phone by upgrading to iOS 13.x). But after considering it for a long time I went ahead and did it anyway and it seemed to still apply, so I wanted to add this to the question for other with the same question. But since I'm new I can't add replies to existing answers so my only option to share that, was to create a new answer.
    – Anders N
    Commented Oct 27, 2019 at 11:59
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    I think this is a valuable answer because it confirms that it's still the case even on iOS 12 (and that I'm not crazy). If it was an exact duplicate (like iOS 9) then I'd want to have it converted to a comment. But that's just my opinion. It's valuable, relevant information that shouldn't be buried in comments. The only other option I see is adding this as an edit to my existing answer. We just need good ways to keep the information on these old questions still relevant.
    – Andrew Larsson
    Commented Oct 28, 2019 at 19:58
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If you restore, on any device that can accept that iOS, you will have to update too. I imagine this is one of the reasons why 'they' say not to restore a jailbroken phone [not that I've ever had one].

I've never actually seen the Slide to Upgrade, as I don't do upgrades/restores OTA, always connected to iTunes, but on iTunes it wants to fetch the update before it will let you do anything else at all.

The only exception would be an iPhone 4, etc, which has reached end of life.

Following comments that you can revert to an earlier version by downloading the .ipsw file - this is always going to be the case for a few weeks after an update, but will always timeout & leave an upgrade as the only alternative most of the time - research shows me that indeed today is that day (6 April 2016) for 9.2.1 - Following release of iOS 9.3 & 9.3.1, Apple stops signing iOS 9.2.1

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  • Apple is still signing iOS 9.2.1. If I restore to iOS 9.2.1 right now and use a backup, is it going to try to update it to iOS 9.3? Maybe someone that doesn't have anything to lose should try it out. I'm really asking this question to be able to answer this other question: apple.stackexchange.com/questions/231921/…
    – Andrew Larsson
    Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 16:55
  • I'm pretty sure the restore will force you to upgrade. I don't have a disposable device to test on, I'm afraid.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 17:02
  • Neither do I, otherwise I'd do it, too.
    – Andrew Larsson
    Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 17:08
  • you can go to 9.2.1 if you download the package and install from backup
    – Kalamalka Kid
    Commented Apr 6, 2016 at 8:09
  • This is always going to be the case for a few weeks after an update, but will always timeout & leave an upgrade as the only alternative most of the time. & research shows me that indeed today is that day for 9.2.1 - Following release of iOS 9.3 & 9.3.1, Apple stops signing iOS 9.2.1
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Apr 6, 2016 at 8:16

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