How To Backup Iphone Data To External Hard Drive

At that place's never too many photos on iPhone, correct? Wrong. When it comes to backing up your iOS device, endless photos, letters, and files can suffocate your internal storage on Mac.

The outset way to solve the problem is pretty straightforward: Proceed your iPhone or iPad clean. It became a flake easier with the release of iOS 13, which allows removing similar shots and clutter from your Photos gallery automatically. If you accept 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 merely love good photography — this is a pro-level tool to save your deejay infinite.

Only what if photos are non the problem? Sometimes information technology'south virtually text docs, mail attachments — lots of minor files that get heavier and heavier as they pile up. Information technology will take hours of work to gratis up storage space manually. So we advise you don't. You can solve the problem by changing iPhone fill-in location instead.

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

How to modify iPhone backup location on Mac

There are 2 Apple tree ways to fill-in 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 fill-in to an external drive both means. If you follow these, nothing could become incorrect.

Locate iOS backups in iTunes/Finder

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

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

The mechanism is a scrap dissimilar if you lot're searching for a specific backup. In this case, go to iTunes > Preferences > Devices. Control-click the selected fill-in and select Show in Finder from the drop-down carte du jour.

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 course:

Open a new Finder window
Select Get > Get to Binder
Type the command ~/Library/Awarding Support/MobileSync/Backup/
Hit Go.
Admission your Fill-in folder from there.

An important affair to call up is that you lot shouldn't copy or excerpt specific files from your Backup binder — this might lead to your files being ruined. What you lot have to do is to copy and transfer an unabridged folder.

Locate iOS backups in iCloud

If you use iCloud for iPhone backups, you don't have to suffer from the depression storage problem. In one case your iPhone or iPad files are backed up, yous can simply delete the backups. None of your valuable information will be damaged.

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

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

On your Mac:

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

Backup iPhone to external hard bulldoze

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

Likewise, let us warn you in advance that you shouldn't delete a backup later you move it to the new storage location. Before you do anything to your onetime iOS backups, brand sure y'all fix iTunes to backup from the hard bulldoze. Allow's go through it step by step.

How to salvage iPhone backup to external hard drive:

Connect your external difficult drive to Mac and open information technology.
Select the fill-in folder from the Finder window or iTunes. Usually, the name of the fill-in folder consists of random numbers and letters, or it'due south called "Backup."
Elevate the entire folder — couldn't emphasize information technology more — to your external drive.
Type your admin password.
Rename the backup binder to "iOS_backup" and enter the admin countersign once again to ostend your action.

Now, the virtually 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 washed 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 swoop into it, make sure you allow Full Disk Access for Terminal. You'll have to enable it manually if you apply macOS Mojave. In this instance, go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy. Unlock past entering your admin countersign and click Full Disk Access. Add Terminal to the list of apps with full access permission via the plus button.

Create a symlink

Can you lot backup an iPhone to an external hard drive without a symlink? Not without using third-party tools. So allow'due south swoop in into what symlink is and how to create information technology.

Symlink actually stands for "symbolic link" and is only a file that contains the path to your backup. In a give-and-take, a bookmark.

If you want to save an iPhone backup to an external drive, your system needs to know where to put the files, and then creating a symlink is essential. As outlined above, symlink is created with the assist of Terminal.

Commencement, give Terminal Full Disk Access in your Mac's System Preferences. Next, open up Terminal and type in the following command:

ln -s/Volumes/Nameofyourexternaldrive/ios_backup/~/Library/Application Support /MobileSync/Backup/Nameofyourbackupfolder

Replace "Nameofyourexternaldrive" and "Nameofyourbackupfolder" with respective values — an verbal proper name of the difficult drive you lot are using (should be displayed in Finder) and the name of the backup binder for the iPhone or the iPad.

Yous've done everything right if yous can find a newly created symlink file with the name of your backup folder in the MobileSync folder. The file icon should have an pointer in the lesser left corner.

How to remove the symlink and go back to restoring your backups on your Mac

Equally you can encounter, while you tin can backup an iPhone directly to an external drive, information technology takes quite a few steps. If yous decide to remove symlink and use a more than straightforward tool, you tin simply type in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup in Spotlight to locate your folder, open it, and but delete it.

Backing upwards to an external drive: How to check it works?

Now when y'all've backed up iPhone to portable hard drive, run a test to see whether iTunes is actually bankroll up from the new location:

Connect your iPhone or iPad.
Launch iTunes or discover your device via Finder.
Select Back up Now.
With the backup completed, open the iOS_backup folder on the external bulldoze.
Check the appointment and fourth dimension of the final backup — it should coincide with your recent activity.

Only subsequently the test proves successful can y'all delete your old backups.

How to backup iPhone direct to external drive

There are two big problems with iTunes backups. And we can understand why yous say "nay" to both of them. Starting time of all, if y'all're backing up with iTunes or iCloud, y'all never know what files are covered. While you lot take to move an entire folder to your external drive, in that location's no manner to check what's inside — not to mention selecting specific files for a backup.

Another matter is Terminal commands tin can get incorrect — and they oft practice. A single mistake tin can break the whole process, so you'll have to start all over again. The good news is you tin actually back upwardly iPhone to an external hard bulldoze without iTunes and iCloud. The tool that you demand for that is called AnyTrans for iOS.

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

Transfer media files, including photos, messages, and documents from your iPhone/iPad to Mac.
Back up your iOS device to an external bulldoze in seconds.
Preview files that y'all'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 fill-in directly to an external drive.

Backup iPhone to Mac

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

The backup process is a 4-step deal if you lot use AnyTrans — instead of complicated Final commands. Here's how you lot back up directly to an external bulldoze:

Connect your iPhone or iPad to Mac and open AnyTrans.
Click on Backup Managing director and view the listing of files that can be backed upwardly.
Tick the boxes next to specific file categories or select all.
Cull your external drive every bit the target save location and click on the Next button to showtime backing up.

That's information technology. Everything you've backed up will now appear on your external drive. As well, bank check out data about what do yous do if your iPhone won't turn on at all.

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

Double protection

If yous're determined to use the built-in tools for your iOS and iPad backups, nosotros recommend using both iCloud and iTunes/Finder. It's never a waste of fourth dimension when it comes to ensuring your information security. So in case something goes wrong, you lot'll have a fill-in plan. Pun intended.

Move backups beyond storages

Perchance you lot have lots of data. Or, you simply adopt cloud storage to storing your files on a local bulldoze. That's understandable. To ensure nothing gets lost in the shuffle, apply CloudMounter to mount your cloud drives every bit local disks and thus, transfer backups across multiple storages flexibly.

Two (or 162) for the price of one

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 become the Setapp subscription, you'll exist able to handle automatic iOS backups, move backups beyond storage, and do 210+ other things.

Why you lot should utilise an external storage for fill-in

At present y'all know how to shop iPhone backup on an external drive or in cloud storage and can choose the most suitable option for your daily routine. Making sure your near valuable data is condom and has a backup copy is vital, and so take the time to adjust for your most optimal solution.

As detailed above, you can create an external copy of your device'south files into an external binder with the assist of iTunes or a deject storage in iCloud. You tin can also employ third-party tools to make your fill-in procedure seamless and breezy.

AnyTrans for iOS and CloudMounter are fantabulous solutions y'all tin can endeavor for quick, hassle-free backups that crave next to cypher technical skills and save you time on figuring out all the nitty-gritty. Feels like something you lot'd be into? Try both apps and many more than tools for productivity and better efficiency on Setapp now!

Gratuitous trial available.