I tried to restore an iPhone 6 without doing an OS update, using 3 different methods, none of which worked. Each of them resulted in an iTunes dialog telling me a restore would be done, followed by installing the latest update.
Can a restore actually be done without an update, or is Apple once again, holding a GUI. To our head?
If I’m not mistaken you can use iMazing to do this – Apple has all the old .ipsw files available, you just need to locate the URL for the file for your device and desired OS, then iMazing will let you manually choose the .ipsw from which to install.
This website provides the links to those firmware images: https://ipsw.me
But please note that you cannot install any image you like. iTunes will connect to an Apple server to check whether Apple allows the installation of that image.
At the time of writing Apple only approves installing iOS 11.4.1 on an iPhone 6.
Indeed, but in your first post you asked help for restoring, which usually includes getting data back. Setting it up as a new device means starting from scratch.
I’ve found a solution whic doesn’t involve iTunes, initially.
There is a an option under Settings, General, that allows me to erase all data. Settings, General, erase and reset all settings.
Then I restored the phone from the latest backup, using iTunes.
That was the first method I tried. The webpage is out of date.
Itunes only allows restoring thee factory defaults in addition to updating the OS (which I don’t want to do).