How to Backup iPhone to External Hard Drive on Mac (2024)

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In this video, i'm showing you how to backup your iPhone on an external hard drive to save space on your Mac. By default, you are not able to choose where to save your backup. It will be saved automatically on your local drive. Usually, iOS backups are quite big, and you don’t want to waste your SSD space on your Mac just to store your iPhone backup. It’s way more practical to keep your iOS backups on an external hard drive so you can access them only when there is such a need.

My method is very simple and does not require any special knowledge or any third-party applications. We will create a link between the backup folder on your Mac and your External Hard Drive where the actual data will be stored. 

To perform backup on an external hard drive just follow 3 simple steps:

Step 1.
Plug your external Hard Drive into your MacBook and create a folder named Backup on your external Drive. It’s important to name the folder Backup with capital B ok. You can place this Backup folder in any other folder of your choice.

Step 2. Open Finder - Go to folder: ~/Library
Library stores all the most important system files of your Mac. In Library Search for Application Support. Open it and search for the MobileSync folder. In this place, MacOs save all backups of your iPhone or iPad.

Copy your existing Backups into the Backup folder just created on your external Hard drive and delete the backup folder in MobileSync on your Mac. If you don’t have any backups just simply delete the backup folder in MobileSync on your computer.

Step 3.
Now we will be linking your Backup folder on your external hard drive to the MobileSync folder on your Mac so your backup will be saved on your external hard drive and not on your computer.

Open the terminal app on your Mac and type this command:
ln -s (Drag Backup folder on External Drive) (Drag MobileSync folder) press ENTER.

In my case:
ln -s /Volumes/Master\ Data\ AFPS\ 4TB/iPhone\ 12\ Pro\ Max\ 256GB\ Backups/Backup /Users/arthurbrassart/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync

Timecodes:
0:00 - Intro
1:09 - Step 1.
1:30 - Step 2.
2:09 - Step 3.
3:40 - End

#iPhone #howto #backup

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[pedroalmodovar]

Thank you so much! One of the clearest tutorials I've seen so far

[lilyflower]

It worked! Thanks a lot!

For those who can't see the Mobilesync folder. Press the “Command” + “Shift” + “.” (period) keys at the same time. The hidden folders will become visible. Also, for my Mac, I needed to go through the "Library" under my username. Not the "Library" under "Macintosh HD."

[onolicious]

Apple doesn’t offer it because they want to push you into buying iCloud subscription. Two reasons for that: 1. revenue. 2. Gives them access to ALL your data.

[EleniGRQT]

this was so incredibly helpful, I am finally able to free up space on my phone now that I've followed your tutorial. thank you for making this so clear and easy to follow!

[FabledCity]

This was so incredibly helpful! My iphone got run over by a car and I had to replace the screen just to be able to unlock it to back it up but then my macbook was too full to store the backup and I could not figure out how to put it on my external drive. I had to watch this 5 times to make sure I was doing it exactly correctly and voila! I got it done. 💙

[mkledits]

This is probably the best tutorial, it's simple and easy to follow and you kept it very short. Thank you so much!

[johnarcher]

This was so useful. Thank you. It took me a couple of goes to get the Terminal stages right. But got there in the end. You are so right about apple and backups. Many iphones now have a 1TB hard drive, equal to many a computer. It should be much simpler. Really appreciate this Arthur .

[dkogoix]

MY. GOD. This is a life-saver! I found so many written articles and videos that are so badly written i almost lose it. I am really thankful i found your video! Great job!

[skizzbeans]

Thank you so much for this!!! I didn’t have enough space on my iMac to backup my iPhone. So happy I can use one of my external drives for this. Much smarter to do it this way in my opinion than keeping the backup on my computer where it’s not needed. And I can easily backup the external drive to another drive for an added layer of security! :)

[seoulologyy]

This is incredible and so simple. You saved me $120/year! Thank you so much!! I can free up my photo storage on my phone for my next trip.

[boneaterwong]

Thank you very much for the video. My backup is taking forever to even begin though... last night I left my macbook on to let the backup run but only a very small bit got backed up and I had to stop it as I need my phone for the day. Any idea why this is happening? Thanks a lot!!!!

[itsgersonsanchez]

I appreciate this! Saves me using the memory on my Macbook since I already have a ton of projects saved. Thank you!

[VULF]

Hi I can’t find the mobilesync folder in application support ?

[KoenVerburg]

Thanks Arthur, I did de backup like you suggested. I have the same problem as other people in te comments. After the backup when I searched for the backup at "manage backups" no backups are shown. Do you have a clarification or explanation? Kind regards

[rachelirving]

Very helpful and easy to follow. Thank you!

[shinilluits]

It works! Thank you very much. Such an easy and straight forward tutorial too.

[saheedlawal]

Hello Arthur, thank you so much for your video. Unfortunately, My back up folder does not show the arrow sign. Initially when dragging the folder into terminal app it kept saying "illegal option" until I realised my mistake that I forgot to leave space after "s" ln -s before dragging the back up folder then it say file exists. Can you tell me what i am doing wrong. I am still using Mac OS high seirra is this the problem?

[Trish_C]

Hi, thank you for the video. I followed the instructions and it worked perfectly. However, when I restarted the machine, suddenly there is a large amount of system data occupying space now. I ended up deleting all the backups and it then reduced the system data file. Any ideas how to prevent the iOS backups from using system data storage?

[apollostudiolondon]

Hi, I'm wondering if this bypasses iTunes and how does it work in reverse, ie. Getting things back onto a new phone. I'm expecting a delivery of a new phone soon and the back up to iCloud is proving troubelsome. Slow uploads in the home mean that the backup doesn'e seem to complete. Thanks.

[eydzzdye]

Best and cleanest tutorial about external backup on Mac! Thanks!