I have a client with a bunch of employees who all have iPads. Recently I've been assisting them with getting those iPads off of a single iCloud account (for 16 tablets!) and onto Apple's DEP program and managed by and MDM (Jamf Now).

So far, despite some frustrations, the process has gone pretty well. But I was told that none of the employees kept essential data on their tablets. Well now we're getting to a batch of them that DO store data like stuff in Notes and a few other spots. This is only challenging because in order to configure the tablets for DEP/MDM they must be wiped.

My question: is it possible to only back up some data from an iOS device, then restore only that bit afterwards? I don't want to restore things like account settings AT ALL. I just want them to be able to get their minor amount of data back after the wipe.

I have to prep these tablets using a MacBook, so I assume I'd back them up with iTunes (shudder). Can I restore in iTunes without restoring account data?

Not that I'm aware of. Hopefully someone will pipe up and prove me wrong. That sort of data is normally linked to the AppleID and will not restore to any device that is not logged in under the same AppleID. Some non-Apple apps may support export of data or store data on their own servers, but I'm pretty sure you're SOL for those that don't.

For some IOS apps (Notes, for example) you can ‘Share’ the data/note with other user/Apple IDs.
Once shared to the new/other AppleID, I think the shared data will remain accessible when the originating device is wiped. Maybe. Some testing is advised.

Depending on the data, perhaps you could just ‘print’ the individual notes to PDF. Email/send/save those PDF files off device.

To create a PDF from content;
In iOS, click print for the desired content.
Then pinch zoom in to expand the print page preview.
The preview will change to an actual full screen PDF.
Click the icon (up arrow out of a box) to save/send the PDF.

Or just share/email each note from the Notes app.
After wipe/reconfiguration of the device, receive the emails and save the contents?

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately there's quite a few notes. Tons of photos, too. I'm still trying to figure out a good way to do this, especially with a bunch of iPads. iTunes is definitely not good for this...

Can you use one of the third party managers such as anytrans?

-jk

Anytrans looks like it should work but it isn't. I get to the step where it asks to turn off iCloud Notes syncing but then it says it'll delete the notes on the device, despite the instructions saying it'll give me the option to keep them. This may have changed in iOS or something else is wrong...

Many years ago Tony Fabris turned me onto a program called CopyTrans Manager. It probably won't help you, but it might be worth a look. What it does is let me manage data transfer between Windows and iOS without having to resort to iTunes. It is a Windows program that will talk to iOS devices, I use it to manage my iPod.

https://www.copytrans.net/

tanstaafl.

Since I have copytrans installed, I tried it. You can copy notes off the iphone into separate directories, but you can't copy them back in.

I tried a program called iMazing to create individual backups. It did a good job of backing up the data I needed and let me specify the files to put back...but the restore wouldn't work. I was so pissed. It also wouldn't restore that data without account data.

Fortunately, it let me export the notes as text files, but now there's no decent way to import those text files back into Notes. I really despise this system.

Sorry, I'm also very pissed off at Apple for other reasons this week...

You could do some hack my stuff on device using the Shortcuts app to import a bunch of text files and create Notes. Would be fairly painful though and probably lose the formatting.

I'm getting to this thread late, so this advice might be too late. Could you move the notes into a folder in the shared iCloud account, wipe the device, then sign into the shared iCloud account, move the notes out to a folder on the local device and then sign out of the shared icloud account?

There aren't many things left that are just in the backup, as then they won't sync to other ios or osx devices.