How to downgrade iOS 26 Beta to iOS 18.5 without data loss

Beta Software iOS & iPadOS
,
23

Thank you for sharing. It is really important to back up your data in iTunes or iCloud in advance. I forgot to back up my data when I used MagFone iOS System Recovery to downgrade iOS, which almost caused all my data to be lost. Fortunately, I backed up my data once half a year ago and recovered some of my data.

2 Likes
24

Thanks for the quite handy article.
I want to share my experience here downgrading the iPad mini 6th Gen from iOS 26 to iOs18.5 and the issues I had.

  1. I didn’t have the previous backup, so I created the backup for the iOS 26
  2. Followed the instructions to reset the iPad
  3. Modified ONLY the file Info.plist because Manifest.plist, for me was a binary file.
  4. Restored the backup

Issues:

  • Health app not syncing to iCloud
  • iMessages not syncing to iCloud
  • Files app not accessing iCloud Drive
  • Other apps like MyStuff not syncing to iCloud

How I fixed (YES everything is working now)

  • Installing iOS 18.6 public beta didn’t fix the issues
  • I had to logout the Apple Account
    • Settings>YourAccountName>Sign Out - at the bottom of the page
    • Keep all the data in the device
  • Log in to Apple Account again
2 Likes
25

Appreciate you sharing this :folded_hands: I’m sure it’ll be super helpful for others.

@noah You could give this a try to recover your health data.

26

I’ve followed these steps but now I have no call history, and making / recieving calls doesn’t show in my call history. It doesn’t even notify me of missed calls.

Is there anyway to fix this?

27

Have you tried logging out of your Apple Account and signing back in?

28

Yes!
I had to do it.
Then, there was a message in setting saying the there was a problem syncing.
Clicked there and then things stared to work.

However, I had other issues like could not get notifications from missing calls or seeing them in recent calls.

Unfortunately, I had to come back to IOS 26.
Where now things are more normal.

1 Like
29

Hi! How did you get back to iOS 26? Did you download the beta version directly from the phone or did you use the backup copy you first altered to iOS 18?

30

It worked! Make sure to turn iCloud for health on and off and delete data from your iPhone after you log back in. Unfortunately this turned off iCloud Photos and I can’t turn them back on because my photos are too big to all store in iCloud.

1 Like
31

Hello, I tried to do this technique, but when I modified the version on the file, it doesn’t change the version on u3tools and so, my backup is still marked like a IOS26 backup so the application dont’t allow me to do the backup

32

Use iTunes (on Windows) or Finder (on Mac). I haven’t tested this with third-party tools.

33

But i don’t know why but my Itunes don’t want to show my iphone, apple services doesn’t exist aswell on my computer…

34

You can fix the issue of iTunes not recognizing your iPhone by trying a different cable, preferably an MFi-certified one. Completely uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes may also help in some cases. If that doesn’t work, you can check Apple’s support guide for more help.