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If you back up to a Mac or PC, encryption is off unless you turn it on — and an unencrypted backup silently drops your Health history and your saved passwords.

Apple states it in its own comparison of the two methods. iCloud “always encrypts your backups”. A computer “offers encrypted backups (off by default)”.

And here is what that default costs you. Apple’s list of what a computer backup does not include ends with: Activity, Health, and Keychain data (to back up this content, you’ll need to create an encrypted backup).

Years of step counts, workouts and health records, plus every password in your keychain. Gone from the backup, and you find out on the new phone.

Tick the box

On a Mac — connect the phone, open Finder, select the device in the sidebar, and under General tick Encrypt local backup before you click Back Up Now. Set a password and store it somewhere you will still have it in three years, because Apple cannot reset it and a backup you cannot open is not a backup.

On Windows, the same option sits in the Apple Devices app or iTunes on the device summary screen.

Do this once and it stays on for future backups.

The iCloud trap is the opposite shape

iCloud encrypts everything automatically, so the problem there is not encryption. It is that an iCloud backup is a copy of what is not already in iCloud.

Apple’s list of what iCloud backups do not include is explicit about why: notes already synced, “Photos, if you turned on iCloud Photos”, messages “if you sync messages with iCloud”, and data held in other services like Gmail and Exchange.

That is sensible engineering — no point storing a second copy of something already stored. But it means “iCloud Backup is on” does not mean “everything is safe”. Your photos are safe because iCloud Photos holds them, not because the backup does. Delete one from iCloud Photos and it is gone from both.

What neither method carries

Worth knowing before you assume the new phone will be identical:

Face ID and Touch ID settings — you set those up again either way.
Apple Pay information and settings — cards are re-added on the new device.
Apple Mail data, and anything in another cloud service.
Offline maps.

None of that is loss, exactly. It is just work you will do on the other side, and it is better to expect it than to conclude the restore failed.

Restoring onto a different kind of device

If you are moving an iPad backup onto an iPhone or the reverse, Apple says you can — but photos will not transfer unless you use iCloud Photos, messages will not unless you sync them with iCloud, Voice Memos will not, and apps built only for the other device will not.

Voice Memos is the one that catches people, because there is no second copy anywhere.

What to actually do, in order

Back up to iCloud first, from Settings → your name → iCloud → iCloud Backup → Back Up Now. It is encrypted by default and it needs only Wi-Fi. If it says you are out of space, buy the smallest tier for one month — it is cheaper than losing the lot, and you can cancel after.
Then make a second, encrypted computer backup. Two copies in different places is the whole of backup practice, and the local one is the fast way to restore.
Check the date. Under Back Up Now, Apple shows the date and time of the last backup. Look at it. A backup that ran three weeks ago is not a backup of today.
Do not wipe or trade in the old phone until the new one is up and you have opened the things you care about — Health, Photos, Messages, Voice Memos. The old device is your real backup until you have confirmed the new one.
Write the encryption password down. Not in the keychain on the phone you are replacing.