What’s that you say? You live on your phone? Yea, me too. Between that and my flash drive I’m a mobile working gal and losing either of those gadgets would be a catastrophe. Which is why keeping my phone up to date and all my data backed up is crucial.

If you’re an iPhone owner, here are a few tips for upgrading and backing up your iPhone.

• First order of business. Upgrade your iTunes to the latest version if you haven’t already.
• Clean up your device, getting rid of anything you no longer use, old files, etc. The easiest way to do this is plug your phone into your computer, open iTunes and manage your device from there.
• Use iTunes to backup your phone. Right-click your device name and Back  Up.
• Upgrade your OS. Go ahead. Download and install the latest version of Apple’s Operating System.

Your phone will reboot itself after the upgrade, so be patient and wait for it to finish!

If you’re concerned you may not like the newest OS and may want to revert, there’s an extra step you can take between the clean up and the backup. It’s called Extracting Your SHSH Blobs and you can find detailed information on this process on the Cult of Mac website! Note that this is the only way to ensure you can revert to a previous version of Apple’s OS.

Also note, if you have an unlocked device you may encounter problems when you try to upgrade. I highly recommend doing a Google search for instructions before attempting to upgrade an unlocked iPhone.