Storing iPhone backups on a Mac with limited storage is tricky. Instead of deleting old iPhone backups, you can move them to a different location, like an external drive.
This is a good way to reclaim space on your Mac and save future backups directly to external storage. Follow the steps in this guide to find your existing backups, move them to an external drive, then save all your subsequent backups to that drive as well.
Step 1. Find Your iPhone Backup on Your Mac
While backing up an iPhone to iCloud is easier, keeping a local iPhone backup on your Mac also has its perks. For starters, you can restore your backup without needing an internet connection or waiting for a long download.
By default, your Mac stores the iPhone backup in the MobileSync folder at a specific location. Open Finder and select Go > Go to Folder from the menu bar, then enter this file path to go to that folder:
~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/BackupYou’ll find folders with alphanumeric names in this Backup folder. But if you haven’t ever made a backup, you won’t see anything.
In that case, back up your iPhone to your Mac first. On Macs running macOS Catalina, Big Sur, or higher, use Finder to back up iPhone. You have to use iTunes to back up the iPhone on your Mac if it runs macOS Mojave, High Sierra, or older.
After creating a backup, you should see an alphanumerically named folder appear in the Backup folder.
Step 2. Move Your iPhone Backups to an External Drive
Now that you know where your iPhone’s backups are stored on your Mac, moving them to an external hard drive is easy. Before proceeding, make a fresh backup of your iPhone on your Mac. Then control-click the iPhone backup folder and select Copy.
If you don’t know which folder is for your iPhone, select each one and press Cmd + I to get information about it. Choose the folder with a modification date and time that matches the backup you just made.
Assuming you’ve connected an external drive to your Mac, create a folder with an easily recognizable name such as NewiPhoneBackup or anything you like.
Then paste your iPhone backup into the NewiPhoneBackup folder. The transfer might take a while, depending on the size of your iPhone backup.
Go back to the original location of the iPhone backups on your Mac. Make a note of the alphanumeric folder name. Then rename the iPhone backup folder to OldBackup, or anything else you like.
That’ll retain the backup folder’s contents in case something goes wrong later. So don’t delete it just yet.
Step 3. Create a Symlink to Use Your External Drive as the Backup Location
You can use a symbolic link (symlink) to make the file or folder appear as if it exists in a different location. Applications read and use the symlink to point at a different target location.
Creating a symlink for your iPhone backups will make Finder redirect to your external drive when accessing and updating your backup folders.
Give Terminal Full Disk Access
First you need to give the Terminal app the necessary permissions to create a symlink. Here’s how to do that:
- Open System Preferences on your Mac and select Security & Privacy.
- Select the Privacy tab.
- Click on the lock icon at the bottom-left corner, then enter your administrator’s password.
- In the sidebar, scroll down and select Full Disk Access from the list.
- Enable Terminal in the list of apps on the right, then click the lock icon again to save these changes.
Create Your Symlink
Now you can use the following command to create a symlink. However, you need to use the exact file paths and folder names to match your external drive and your original backup folder.
Open Terminal, and type the following symlink command, replacing the locations in square brackets to match your computer:
ln -s /Volumes/[External Drive]/[New iPhone Backup Folder] ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/[Original Backup Folder]Here are a few tips to follow while using different paths with this command:
- Make sure your hard drive is formatted to work with macOS. Refer to our guide to fix if your external hard drive is not showing up on Mac.
- Replace [External Drive] with your external drive name. If its name has two words, add a after the first word and capitalize the names accordingly.
- Replace [New iPhone Backup Folder] with the name you created for your iPhone backup folder on the external drive.
- Replace [Original Backup Folder] with the exact alphanumeric folder name for the iPhone backup on your Mac. You probably need to copy and paste this to get it right.
Here’s how the command looks in Terminal for our computer:
After you run the command, you’ll see a new folder icon with an arrow on its bottom-left corner and the same alphanumeric name as the original iPhone backup.
To check whether the symlink works or not, try making a new iPhone backup.
If the symlink works as expected, back up your iPhone to iCloud as an extra safety net, then delete the OldBackup folder from your Mac to free up drive space.
At any point in the future, you can delete the backup folder’s symlink to stop using the external drive as the backup location.
Step 4. Disable Automatic Backups When You Connect Your iPhone
If your external drive isn’t always connected to your Mac, macOS might throw out an error when you connect your iPhone. To fix that, disable the automatic sync option from Finder for your iPhone.
Connect your iPhone to your Mac, then click it in the Finder’s sidebar.
On the right, make sure you’re on the General tab and disable the checkbox in front of Automatically sync when this iPhone is connected.
That stops the Finder from trying to automatically sync your iPhone with the new backup folder on your external drive. It also means you’ll have to connect the relevant hard drive and manually take iPhone backups.
Redirect iPhone Backups to External Drive to Reclaim Space
Moving iPhone backups to an external drive will save a lot of drive space on your Mac. Also, you can rely on local backups to restore your iPhone without worrying about any network connectivity glitches.
While that sounds convenient, it’s also wise to back up your iPhone to iCloud as a second safety net. That way you’ve got plenty of options if you ever need to restore your iPhone.