TwinHopHow we measured a full move
TwinHop team · Updated
On September 1, 2026 we made a full move with a real iPhone 13 Pro on iOS 26.6, from a backup of 93.33 GB and 83,063 files. 382 of 386 apps were installed, and 374 of the 375 apps that had data in the backup got it back. Below is what we counted, why the numbers differ, and what they don’t prove.
The setup
| What | Value |
|---|---|
| Phone | iPhone 13 Pro |
| iOS | 26.6 |
| Backup | 93.33 GB, 83,063 files |
| Date | September 1, 2026 |
| Computer | Mac |
| Mode | Full move: apps installed first, then one restore |
| Program | version 1.9.0, before the program was released as TwinHop |
What we counted
- System settings and data. This is the part of the backup where messages and the Home Screen layout live. It arrived in full: 3,821 of 3,821 files.
- Apps installed: 382 of 386. All four refusals came from the App Store, not from the transfer. Three apps had been downloaded with a different Apple Account, and Apple answered that there was no license for this account. For the fourth, the backup’s list of apps had no App Store number, so there was nothing to ask the App Store for.
- Apps that got their data: 374 of 375. 386 is the number of apps in the backup’s list. 375 is the number of apps that had any data in the backup. An app installed the day before, or one whose developer keeps its data out of backups, has nothing to move, so it isn’t counted.
The one app that showed no data
It was WhatsApp, and its chats were there. We checked the phone by hand: about 3 GB of chat history was in place. Our counter reads the size of each app’s own storage on the phone. WhatsApp keeps its chats in a shared folder that several of its parts use, and the counter doesn’t look there. So the 375th app is a limit of how we counted, not a failed transfer. We still publish 374, because that is what the counter showed.
What these numbers don’t say
- One phone, one day. This is one measured move, not a statistic across many phones. It was made on a Mac with iOS 26.6.
- What a backup leaves out wasn’t counted. Passwords from the Keychain and call history aren’t in an unencrypted backup, so they don’t move. See What moves.
- App installation depends on Apple. Installing apps from your purchases relies on an Apple mechanism that isn’t documented and may change. Moving data from a backup doesn’t depend on it.
- This was a full move. Adding apps to a phone that’s already set up uses a restore too. After any restore, iOS may remove photos and messages that aren’t in iCloud, so TwinHop backs up that phone first.
We plan to repeat the measurement on iOS 27 and will add the result to this page.