How to back up everything (files, photos, messages...) on iCloud ? Not only settings

Review these two guides published by Apple. These guides will answer your questions.

👉 How to back up your iPhone or iPad with iCloud

👉 How to back up your iPhone with a computer

Axel F.

There are 2 ways. If you go to Settings/[Your Name]/iCloud and tap on Show All (iOS 16 only, all other iOS versions don’t need this step) you can turn on switches for app data that you want to sync to iCloud. If you turn some or of all these switches on their data will sync to iCloud, and also to any other devices that share your Apple ID. With the switches on none of those data will be included in an iCloud backup, because that would be redundant. However if any switches are OFF their app data will be included in the backup.

Note that Axel Foley’s links do not explain this difference between syncing to iCloud and backing up to iCloud.