How to Change the iPhone Backup Location on Mac

In this article, we’ll show you the options that you can do to Change the iPhone Backup Location on Mac in very simple steps.

When you back up your mobile device using your computer, the backup is stored on your Mac. The location of the backups is in a folder called MobileSync, and sometimes it gets pretty big, so consider changing the location of iPhone Backups by following the below steps.

Why You Need to Change the iPhone Backup Location?

Well, there may be a bunch of different reasons for changing the backup location on Mac for every 2nd user. But from my perspective, storage becomes the first reason to take this step. Mac devices come with a very limited space even the base variant comes with 128 GB of storage which is too low for keeping your data as well as the backups of your location.

So maybe you need to change the backup location to one your external hard drives, which would be a little nasty but at least you don’t need to worry about storage in your Mac. And other & most compatible options is to change the iPhone backup location to your iCloud storage, this alternative is easy and not so messy, with one click you can do so.

Steps to Change the iPhone Backup Location on Mac

• Open Spotlight (press Cmd+Space), type in the following path, and then press Enter:

  ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync

• A Finder window will open the MobileSync folder.
• Right-click the Backup folder, and then click Copy Backup.
• Open a fresh instance of Finder, and then navigate to the location that you intend to use as the new storage location for iPhone backups.
• Once you are there, right-click a vacant area, and then select Paste Item.
• Wait for the Backup folder to copy over to the new location completely.
• Switch back to the previous Finder window that opened into the MobileSync directory in Step 1.
• Then, right-click the Backup folder inside it, and then select Rename.
• Rename the folder to Backup.old.
• Click on the Apple logo that appears at the top left corner of the screen.
• And then go to System Preferences in the drop-down menu.
• Click the tile labeled Security & Privacy.
• Click the ‘Click the lock to make changes’ option to the lower-left corner of the screen.
• Scroll down the left-hand menu, select Full Disk Access.
• And then click the ‘+’-shaped icon.
• Click Utilities, click Terminal, and then click Open.
• After adding Terminal to the Full Disk Access list, exit the Security & Privacy window.
• Open another fresh instance of Finder, open the Go menu, and then click Utilities.
• Double-click Terminal.
• Insert the following command into Terminal after making the adjustments listed further below:

  ln -s /Volumes/Files/Backup/ ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/

• Make sure you modify the ‘/Volumes/Files/Backup/’ portion of the command above with the actual path of the location that you copied the Backup folder to earlier.
• Once you’ve executed the command, the symbolic link should be active and functional.
• Revisit the MobileSync folder from Step 1, and you should see a shortcut folder labeled Backup located within it.
• You can test if the symlink works properly by double-clicking this folder.
• Connect your iPhone (or iPad) and then perform a backup. It should seamlessly back up to the Backup folder in the new location.
• Once a successful backup is performed, you can safely delete the Backup.old folder (the one that you renamed earlier) within the MobileSync directory.

Do you own an iPhone, iPad or a Mac and need these types of simple tutorials? Then stay tuned to GetDroidTips’ iPhone Tips & Tricks column.

If you have any queries regarding this, the comment section always available for you.