# iCloud Backup

Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/icloud-backup/

5 people recommended iCloud Backup in Hacker News comments, 2 had mixed feelings and 9 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 12 months, in 5 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Criticized more than recommended: critics say backups are encrypted at rest but not end-to-end by default, so Apple can read them; those who recommend it cite automatic backups that make setting up a new iPhone easy.

Summary written by Claude from the comments below.

## What people warn about

- Not end-to-end encrypted by default (6 comments in the sample): "iCloud backups that are not E2E encrypted by default, so that law enforcement can request your chats" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48169194)) "Unless you enable ADP, iCloud backups are only encrypted at rest and not end-to-end." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47838991)) "They default to backing up to Apple servers where they are unencrypted." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46738277))
- Apple can read backed-up messages (4 comments in the sample): "Apple is the company that breaks their "end-to-end" encryption by backing up the encryption keys to their own servers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47366552)) "the chats are only encrypted at-rest in the iCloud backups and are accessible by Apple and law enforcement" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49595906)) "Unfortunately that doesn't prevent Apple from reading your messages from the backups" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47369241))
- Encryption claims called misleading (4 comments in the sample): "Anything short of that does not qualify as E2EE regardless of the defaults, and marketing it as E2EE is false advertising." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46840339)) "Security theater for marketing purposes. End users have no way of verifying that their cloud backups are encrypted" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45780257)) "Apple cares about your privacy, so much that they made a backdoor through bad defaults" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50078120))
- Opt-in protection rarely enabled (1 comment in the sample): "the opt-in e2ee for iCloud Backups is irrelevant - approximately nobody turns it on" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46968803))

## Why people recommend it

- Makes new phone setup easy (3 comments in the sample): "I know it will, since it pushed everything to my newer iPhone" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46274404)) "iCloud backups makes setting up a new phone trivial" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47839544)) "Apple makes this very easy." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49393589))

## What people recommend instead

- [Backblaze Backup](https://hackerapproved.com/p/backblaze/): 34 recommend, 20 mixed, 117 criticize

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://www.icloud.com/)

## The badge

A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged.

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "iCloud Backup", https://hackerapproved.com/p/icloud-backup/ (5 recommend, 2 mixed, 9 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

Counts updated 3 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.