Backup For Iphone On Mac

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Find backups stored on your Mac or PC

To avoid ruining any of your backup files, here's what you should know:

  • The Finder and iTunes save backups to a Backup folder. The location of the Backup folder varies by operating system. Though you can copy the Backup folder, you should never move it to a different folder, external drive, or network drive.
  • Don't edit, relocate, rename, or extract content from your backup files, because these actions might ruin the files. For example, to restore from a relocated backup file, you need to move it back or the file won't work. Backups serve as a safe copy of your entire device. So while you might be able to view or access a backup file's contents, the contents usually aren't stored in a format that you can read.

Backups on your Mac

To find a list of your backups:

Otherwise just click 'Back Up Now.' Step 4: When the process is complete, you can check the recently created backup under Summary. Look under Latest Backup to find the date and time. How to Backup iPhone on Mac Using iCloud. To back up your device via iCloud, follow these simple steps. Step 1: Connect the device to a Wi-Fi network. Turn on iCloud Backup. ICloud automatically backs up your iPhone daily when iPhone is connected to power, locked, and on Wi-Fi. To perform a manual backup, tap Back Up Now. To view your iCloud backups, go to Settings your name iCloud Manage Storage Backups. To delete a backup, choose a backup from the list, then tap Delete Backup. Backup iPhone on Mac via Syncios iPhone Manager. Transfer more than 12.

  1. Click the magnifier icon in the menu bar.
  2. Type or copy and paste this: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
  3. Press Return.

To find a specific backup:

  1. On a Mac with macOS Catalina 10.15 or later, open the Finder. On a Mac with macOS Mojave 10.14 or earlier, or on a PC, open iTunes. Click your device.
  2. In the Finder, under the General tab, click Manage Backups to see a list of your backups. From here, you can right-click on the backup that you want, then choose Show in Finder, or you can select Delete or Archive. In iTunes, choose Preferences, then click Devices. From here, you can right-click on the backup that you want, then choose Show in Finder, or you can select Delete or Archive.
  3. Click OK when you're finished.

Backups in Windows 7, 8, or 10

To find a list of your backups, go to Users(username)AppDataRoamingApple ComputerMobileSyncBackup

You can also use these steps:

  1. Find the Search bar:
    • In Windows 7, click Start.
    • In Windows 8, click the magnifying glass in the upper-right corner.
    • In Windows 10, click the Search bar next to the Start button.
  2. In the Search bar, enter %appdata% or %USERPROFILE% (if you downloaded iTunes from the Microsoft Store).
  3. Press Return.
  4. Double-click these folders: 'Apple' or 'Apple Computer' > MobileSync > Backup.

Delete or copy backups on your Mac or PC

Don't edit, relocate, rename, or extract content from your backup files, because these actions might ruin the files. Use the following sections to make copies of your backups or delete backups that you no longer need.

Copy backups to another location

If you need copies of your backups, you can find the Backup folder and copy the entire folder (not just part of it) to another place, like an external drive or network-storage location.

When you use Time Machine, it automatically copies your Backup folder when you back up the Home folder on your Mac.

Delete backups

  1. On a Mac with macOS Catalina 10.15 or later, open the Finder. On a Mac with macOS Mojave 10.14 or earlier, or on a PC, open iTunes. Click your device.
  2. In the Finder, under the General tab, click Manage Backups to see a list of your backups. From here, you can right-click on the backup that you want, then select Delete or Archive. In iTunes, choose Preferences, then click Devices. From here, you can right-click on the backup that you want, then choose Delete or Archive. Click OK when you're finished.
  3. Click Delete Backup, then confirm.

Locate and manage backups stored in iCloud

If you use iCloud Backup, you won't find a list of your backups on iCloud.com. Here's how to find your iCloud backups on your iOS or iPadOS device, Mac, or PC.

On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:

  • Using iOS 11 or later and iPadOS, go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Manage Storage > Backups.
  • Using iOS 10.3, go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud. Tap the graph that shows your iCloud usage, then tap Manage Storage.

Tap a backup to see more details about it, choose which information to back up, or delete the backup.

You can choose which content to back up only from the Settings menu of the device that stores that content. For example, while you can view your iPad backup from your iPhone, you can choose which iPad content to back up only from the Settings menu of your iPad.

On a Mac with macOS Catalina 10.15 or later:

  1. Choose Apple () menu > System Preferences.
  2. Click Apple ID.
  3. Click iCloud.
  4. Click Manage.
  5. Select Backups.

Backup Iphone On Macbook Air

On a Mac with macOS Mojave 10.14 or earlier:

  1. Choose Apple () menu > System Preferences.
  2. Click iCloud.
  3. Click Manage.
  4. Select Backups.

On your PC:

  1. Open iCloud for Windows
  2. Click Storage.
  3. Select Backup.

Learn more about how to delete or manage iCloud backups from your Mac or PC.

Learn more

  • Learn the difference between iCloud and iTunes backups.
  • Follow steps to back up your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
  • Learn about encrypted backups in iTunes.
Keep Apple devices in sync
Enjoy full-way data transfer with AnyTrans for iOS.
Mac

There's never too many photos on iPhone, right? Wrong. When it comes to backing up your iOS device, endless photos, messages, and files can suffocate your internal storage on Mac.

The first way to solve the problem is pretty straightforward: Keep your iPhone or iPad clean. It became a bit easier with the release of iOS 13, which allows removing similar shots and clutter from your Photos gallery automatically. If you take your gallery cleanness seriously, you can go further and install a smart duplicate finder like Gemini on your phone. Whether you're an Instagram husband/wife, or simply love good photography — this is a pro-level tool to save your disk space.

iPhone Backup to External Storage

Get the best Mac apps to backup and transfer data from iPhone, iPad, iTunes, iCloud to external drives without any loss.

But what if photos are not the problem? Sometimes it's about text docs, mail attachments — lots of small files that become heavier and heavier as they pile up. It will take hours of work to free up storage space manually. So we suggest you don't. You can solve the problem by changing iPhone backup location instead.

In this guide, we'll tell you everything about where iPhone and iPad backups are stored by default, how to move them to an external drive, and what's the best Mac tool for running direct iOS backups.

How to change iPhone backup location on Mac

There are two Apple ways to backup iOS devices to Mac — using iTunes or iCloud. None of them is very easy. We've prepared detailed instructions on how to locate and move iPhone backup to an external drive both ways. If you follow these, nothing could go wrong.

Locate iOS backups in iTunes/Finder

Here's how you find a list of iOS backups if you use iTunes:

  1. Click on the Spotlight Search button in the menu bar
  2. Type the following command: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
  3. Hit Return.

The mechanism is a bit different if you're searching for a specific backup. In this case, go to iTunes > Preferences > Devices. Control-click the selected backup and select Show in Finder from the drop-down menu.

Note that if you're using macOS Catalina or later, you'll have to locate backups via Finder, while newer operating systems don’t have iTunes in its original form:

  1. Open a new Finder window
  2. Select Go > Go to Folder
  3. Type the command ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
  4. Hit Go.
  5. Access your Backup folder from there.

An important thing to remember is that you shouldn't copy or extract specific files from your Backup folder — this might lead to your files being ruined. What you have to do is to copy and transfer an entire folder.

Locate iOS backups in iCloud

If you use iCloud for iPhone backups, you don't have to suffer from the low storage problem. Once your iPhone or iPad files are backed up, you can simply delete the backups. None of your valuable data will be damaged.

How to remove backups from iPhone or iPad and turn off backup for your device.

  1. Go to Settings > Your Name > iCloud
  2. Click Manage Storage > Backups for iOS 11 and iCloud Storage > Manage Storage for iOS 10.3
  3. Select your device name
  4. Delete Backup > Turn Off and Delete.

On your Mac:

  1. Apple menu > System Preferences > Apple ID > iCloud
  2. Select Manage and click on the Backups
  3. With the backup selected, click Delete to remove the backup. Confirm that you would also like to turn off Backup if needed.

Backup iPhone to external hard drive

For those who backup via iTunes/Finder, the journey isn't finished. Now it's time to backup iPhone to USB drive, an external hard drive that won't affect your storage on Mac. This should be done very carefully. Any attempt to extract files from the backup folder or using the wrong name of a hard drive may end up in a failure.

Also, let us warn you in advance that you shouldn't delete a backup after you move it to the new storage location. Before you do anything to your old iOS backups, make sure you set iTunes to backup from the hard drive. Let's go through it step by step.

How to save iPhone backup to external hard drive:

  1. Connect your external hard drive to Mac and open it.
  2. Select the backup folder from the Finder window or iTunes. Usually, the name of the backup folder consists of random numbers and letters, or it's called 'Backup.'
  3. Drag the entire folder — couldn't emphasize it more — to your external drive.
  4. Type your admin password.
  5. Rename the backup folder to 'iOS_backup' and enter the admin password once again to confirm your action.

Now, the most delicate part. It's not enough to create iPhone external storage, you have to tell iTunes where it is to ensure the backups will be done externally from now on. To make that work, you should create a new path — or a so-called symbolic link — for iTunes/Finder.

Before you dive into it, make sure you allow Full Disk Access for Terminal. You'll have to enable it manually if you use macOS Mojave. In this case, go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy. Unlock by entering your admin password and click Full Disk Access. Add Terminal to the list of apps with full access permission via the plus button.

Now you're ready to work with Terminal. Make sure you pay close attention to every word you type — Terminal commands can be cumbersome. Open Terminal via Spotlight and type the following command (no rush, you might need to customize it):

ln-s/Volumes/External/ios_backup~/Library/ApplicationSupport/MobileSync/Backup/ 4f1234a05e6e7ccbaddfd12345678f1234b123f

In the command above, 'External' is the name of your hard drive. Possibly, your drive has a different name, so you'll have to change it in the command. The last part '4f1234a05e6e7ccbaddfd12345678f1234b123f' is the name of the backup folder. If you're transferring via Finder, it's very common for this folder to be named 'Backup.' Make sure they match or rename accordingly.

Once your command is accurate, hit Return and quit Terminal.

You've done everything right if you can find a newly created symlink file with the name of your backup folder in the MobileSync folder. The file icon should have an arrow in the bottom left corner.

Backing up to external drive: How to check it works?

Now when you've backed up iPhone to portable hard drive, run a test to see whether iTunes is really backing up from the new location:

  1. Connect your iPhone or iPad.
  2. Launch iTunes or find your device via Finder.
  3. Select Back Up Now.
  4. With the backup completed, open the iOS_backup folder on the external drive.
  5. Check the date and time of the last backup — it should coincide with your recent activity.

Only after the test proves successful can you delete your old backups.

How to backup iPhone directly to external drive

There are two big problems with iTunes backups. And we can understand why you say 'nay' to both of them. First of all, if you're backing up with iTunes or iCloud, you never know what files are covered. While you have to move an entire folder to your external drive, there's no way to check what's inside — not to mention selecting specific files for a backup.

Another thing is Terminal commands can go wrong — and they often do. A single mistake can break the whole process, so you'll have to start all over again. The good news is you can actually back up iPhone to external hard drive without iTunes and iCloud. The tool that you need for that is called AnyTrans for iOS.

AnyTrans is a Mac utility that handles connections across iOS, macOS, and Android devices. And by 'connections' we mean lots of useful things that built-in utilities like iTunes can't handle:

  • Transfer media files, including photos, messages, and documents from your iPhone/iPad to Mac.
  • Back up your iOS device to an external drive in seconds.
  • Preview files that you're backing up and select your custom file types if you don't want to back up everything.
  • Preview old iCloud and iTunes backups and transfer files from your old backup directly to an external drive.

As a nice perk, AnyTrans has a built-in media downloader that enables you to download video and audio from 900+ websites, including YouTube and Dailymotion.

Iphone

The backup process is a four-step deal if you use AnyTrans — instead of complicated Terminal commands. Here's how you back up directly to external drive:

  1. Connect your iPhone or iPad to Mac and open AnyTrans.
  2. Click on Backup Manager and view the list of files that can be backed up.
  3. Tick the boxes next to specific file categories or select all.
  4. Choose your external drive as the target save location and click on the Next button to start backing up.

That's it. Everything you've backed up will now appear on your external drive. Also, check out information about what do you do if your iPhone wont turn on at all

Let's sum up with a few tips that will help you keep your iPhone data protected:

Double protection

If you're determined to use the built-in tools for your iOS and iPad backups, we recommend to use both iCloud and iTunes/Finder. It's never a waste of time when it comes to ensuring your data security. So in case something goes wrong, you'll have a backup plan. Pun intended.

Move backups across storages

Maybe you have lots of data. Or, you simply prefer cloud storage to storing your files on a local drive. That's understandable. To ensure nothing gets lost in the shuffle, use CloudMounter to mount your cloud drives as local disks and thus, transfer backups across multiple storages flexibly.

There's always a way back

We encourage you to simplify things with AnyTrans. And even if you decide to go with iTunes, note that you can always delete your symlink and try an easier option. To go back to internal backups, type ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup in Spotlight and delete your symlink folder.

Two (or 162) for the price of one

Backup Iphone On Mac To External Hard Drive

Both AnyTrans and CloudMounter are available with a Setapp subscription. Setapp is a package of curated Mac utilities that solve the majority of jobs on Mac. So if you get the Setapp subscription, you'll be able to handle automatic iOS backups, move backups across storages and do 160+ other things.

Setapp lives on Mac and iOS. Please come back from another device.

Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.

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