If you’re planning to buy or have just bought the new iPad Air and wondering how to transfer data from your old iPad to the new iPad Air, then follow the steps mentioned below to first take a back up of your old iPad and then restore the backup to your newly purchased iPad using iTunes or iCloud.

This process will transfer your saved messages, email accounts, photos, notes, and other personal settings to your new iPad.

Before we start, we would recommend you to update your old iPad to iOS 7 to ensure that you don’t hit any compatibility issues when you migrate from your old iPad data on iOS 6.x.x or lower to iPad Air running on iOS 7. You can check out this guide to update your old iPad to iOS 7.

Please note that if you also want to transfer passwords to your new iPad then it is possible only using iTunes backup. Check this guide to encrypt iPad backup so that your keychain information, which includes email account passwords, Wi-Fi passwords, and passwords you enter into websites and some other applications, is also backed up and transferred to your new iPad.

We will show you how to transfer the data from your old iPad to iPad Air using iTunes or iCloud.

Using iTunes:

• Ensure that you’ve installed the latest version of iTunes. You can update it via Software Update or download it from here.

• Take a back up of your old iPad by following the steps in this tutorial.

• After the backup is complete, turn off your old iPad and turn on your iPad Air. Note: It’s important that you don’t use your old iPad again as it will cause conflicts with the backups in iCloud. You should also unregister or unlink your old iPad from Apple’s website by visiting your profile page.

• Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the setup assistant by selecting your language and country, and choose whether to enable Location Services. When prompted, choose your Wi-Fi network.

• When prompted to set up, choose “Restore from iTunes Backup,” tap next, and enter your Apple ID and password.

• Now connect your new iPad to iTunes (on the same computer you used to back up your old iPad). iTunes will ask you to restore from backup or set up as new. Select the backup of your old device and choose Continue (Ensure that iTunes is showing you the latest backup of your old iPad). Please note that restoring from the backup can be a time consuming process and depends  on the amount of data contained in the backup and on the speed of your Internet connection.

• When the restore process is complete, your new iPad will restart. Then it will be ready for use. You should keep your new iPad connected to iTunes to sync data not contained in the backup (such as music, videos, apps, and so on).

• You can verify and change which data are synced by clicking the syncing tabs in iTunes.

• If you haven’t encrypted your iPad backup, then you will also need to enter your password for your Apple ID, email and other accounts, and voicemail again. The passwords are not restored to a new device due to security reasons.

Using iCloud:

• iCloud backs up your device once a day. But it is good practise to backup your old device to iCloud one last time before before migrating so nothing is missed out. Launch the Settings app and navigate to iCloud > Storage & Backup and tap on Back Up now button. This may take time depending on the amount of data to be backed up.

• After the backup is complete, check the Last Backup time (should show current time) to ensure that your backup was successful.

• Now turn off your old iPad and turn on your iPad Air. Note: It’s important that you don’t use your old iPad again as it will cause conflicts with the backups in iCloud. You should also unregister or unlink your old iPad from Apple’s website by visiting your profile page.

• Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the setup assistant by selecting your language and country, and choose whether to enable Location Services. When prompted, choose your Wi-Fi network.

• When prompted to set up, choose “Restore from iCloud Backup,” tap next, and enter your Apple ID and password.

• Select the latest backup of your old device and tap Restore. Wait until the device has finished restoring from the backup. Please note that it can be a time consuming process and depends  on the amount of data contained in the backup and on the speed of your Internet connection.

• When the restore process is complete, your iPad Air will restart. Then it will be ready for use. You should also connect the device to iTunes to sync data not contained in the backup (such as music, videos, apps , and so on).

• iPad Air will also start re-downloading all your apps in the background.

• You can verify and change which data are synced by clicking the syncing tabs in iTunes.

• You will also need to enter your password for your Apple ID, email and other accounts, and voicemail again. The passwords are not restored to a new device for security reasons. However, if you want them to be restored then using the iTunes method with encrypted backup.

That’s it, you should now be able to use your shiny new iPad Air.

Let us know how it goes and feel free to drop me a line in the comments if you’ve any questions.