How to restore an iPhone from a previous backup using iTunes

Question

Hi all, I don't have a question - but merely a story of the solution I found to restore a previous backup from my wife's iPhone 5c that had some problems. Long story short, something got jammed with her Exchange email account settings and she lost all of her contacts and emails. Everything was fine on her work server (accessing the account using Outlook or the web app worked just fine). For whatever reason, this would not be fixed by deleting and recreating the Exchange account on the iPhone for some reason.
First let me say that this would never have worked if I didn't have a recent, intentional, manual backup of her phone. Moral of the story: plug your phone in to your computer and back up regularly. However, the trouble always seems to arise (much like it did in this case): with an automatic backup overwriting a good file with bad data.
My last known good backup was on Feb 17th. After that date, something went wrong on the phone. When I connected it to the computer in an effort to restore it from that backup, I was befuddled by the fact that the first thing iTunes does is immediately back up the phone, which automatically overwrites the 'Latest Backup' with today's date (the 20th). I tried restoring the backup thinking to myself that iTunes would fish out the second most recent, but when it was finished I got a restored version of the phone that was broken, not the working copy from the 17th.
Before starting this process it's important to know what on which date your last good backup completed.
I should note that in my study I learned that there is a fundamental difference between backing up and syncing. The former handles all the settings and iOS stuff, the latter is all about apps and music (and stuff). This knowledge proved useful later.
I'm using an iMac with OSX Yosemite 10.10.2, iTunes 12.1.0.50, and a USB backup drive filled daily, courtesy of Time Machine.
The process looked like this:
1. Unplug the phone, double tap the home button and quit all the apps, and turn it off. It's probably not necessary to shut it down entirely, but that's what OCD does - it makes you do irrational things.
2. Quit all the computer's programs, and restart. Again, the wonder of OCD.
3. Once restarted, don't open iTunes. Mouse up to the 'Go' menu in the Finder top bar. Click on 'Go'. Hold down the 'Option' key and you'll notice the 'Library' submenu magically appears. Click 'Library'.
4. A Finder > Library window will open. Double click on 'Application Support'. Double click on 'MobileSync'. You should be staring at a Finder window with a folder called 'Backup'. Don't double click it.
5. From here, launch Time Machine from the Dock or from Mission Control. Ooh and aaahh as the Finder window magically animates itself into file-folder order.
6. Scan back in time to the date after your last good backup. Click 'Restore'. It will ask you if you want to keep or overwrite the 'Backup' folder. I overwrote mine. It was a 25GB folder, so the Time Machine recovery took a while.
7. While the recovery was going on, I learned of a way (here) to use the Terminal application (inside Mission Control > Other) to disable the automatic backup function in iTunes. For sake of not mis-copying the Terminal commands and giving you broken code, I suggest you refer to that page - plus, you should give them kudos and share their work because frankly, I'm not smart enough to have written it. Simply copy in the 'disable' command in to Terminal, wait a moment, and a new Terminal command line will pop-up. That means it's done and good. I thought I might get some fireworks, but alas.
8. With the backups turned off, the phone unplugged, and the Time Machine restore complete, I quit Time Machine and launched iTunes.
9. I plugged in the phone. It booted up. It then synced, but did not backup (which was perfect). The 'Latest Backup' field thankfully read February 17th. Joy. I clicked 'Restore Backup...' and the process began. The phone successfully recovered and I was elated.
10. Now recovered and fully functional again (contacts and mail both intact), I again unplugged the phone and then quit iTunes. I returned to the Terminal application, and punched in the other code that causes the automatic backup to resume. I relaunched iTunes, plugged in a different iPhone (to test objectively), and it both synced and backed up. Huzzah.
To be honest, I won't be following this thread nor replying to questions if any arise. I just thought I should share the solution and thank all of the people who posted stuff along the way that helped me out of a jam. Thank You.
-- Cedric

Answer 1

Hi austinflorida,
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
From your post I understand you want to restore your iOS backups to the new iTunes installation.  Take a look at the information below on how you can accomplish this.
If you backed your iOS device up to iTunes, back up your devices on the new computer or manually transfer the backups from your old computer. The backups belong in:
Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
Windows XP: \Documents and Settings\(username)\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\
Note: To quickly access the Application Data folder, click Start, and then choose Run. Type %appdata%and click OK.
Windows Vista and Windows 7: \Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\
Note: To quickly access the AppData folder, click Start, and then in the search bar type %appdata% and press the Return key.
Windows 8: \Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\
Note: To quickly access the AppData folder, move the cursor to the top-right, click on the magnifying glass charm, type %appdata% and press the Return key.
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer
Take care,
Alex H.