Backup iPhone (or iPad) on External Hard Drive [for Windows] - Step by Step

[@SnapCracklePapa]

You don't mention it in the video, but it's on the web page - When doing the Command Prompt segment, you need to make sure the code has your proper designations for your drives. For example; my external drive needed to be changed to "D" from "E" in the code.

[@abdullahaldosari3736]

thanks now i knew why i didnt complete at first lol.

[@melicrystal]

I’m getting a local volumes are required to complete operation

[@elpasoparacord]

​@@melicrystal did you get that situated?

[@SougandhikaPrashanth]

Thank you! this really helped :)

[@Adamtherealboss]

This one actually works! I had to create the folder "backup" in the mobilesync folder on my external drive. Make sure you follow it exactly and change the letter (E or F etc.) for your external drive.

[@MrTimmmers]

Nice video, but no mention of restoring from backups which is why we back up?

[@dskear]

I was able to get it done. Thank you for putting this together. I would suggest you add the two comand promt link texts to the description section of the video, instead of forcing folks to pull up your web arcticle.

[@GunGuyOK]

That’s on purpose to get traffic and ads clicked

[@colegatrader4545]

very good video, and now if I want to go back to the original settings what command should I use?

[@appetizingcuisinejunction248]

Hi george ! After creating path to external hard drive , . I cannot open the "backup folder with an arrow " in mu local drive. Error occurs. However when i try to start backing up using itunes. There occurs an error as well. What to do. Please answer thank you

[@TamerlaneofTransoxania]

Now how do we restore back to iphone from external hard drive ?

[@bethhaddadbunnell871]

@techlunar - I backed up my iPhone just as you taught to my hard drive. I dropped my phone in a lake (132 feet), received my replacement phone, and now need to restore the backup from the hard drive to the replacement phone. Do you have a tutorial video on how to do this? Thank you!

[@unown293]

did you ever figure out how to do this?

[@My_ironman_journey]

I can’t do this. It comes up “there is not enough space on windows. You need an additional 24.9GB to copy these files.” I’m using a 5TB external hard drive with a cheap small laptop…?

[@nikjov13]

Same question here

[@mattj6588]

youre probably copying them into a location on your built-in memory. Make sure it's just the external drive.

[@abdelhakimhamrit9328]

Same I'm stuck there

[@davidebiondi4948]

the only really useful video, thank you from italy, +1 subscriber

[@PhantomBelle]

Finally made space for my trip next month. :D

[@ArnoldZuboff]

Thank you very much for your help. But there's a problem. The backup folder on my C drive is linked to the new one on my external hard drive D. And a new backup has been stored in the folder on D. But in iTunes no backup to the computer is listed.

[@AB-kk9sx]

It worked. One of the most helpful videos on YT. Thank you.

[@andrewgates2132]

This helped a lot just had to change the letters for the drives in the command prompt! I didn’t notice that said it on the website . Great tutorial

[@jenniferm4020]

Not working and cannot figure out why, when I copy-paste the command in the Command prompt and change to info to "admin" and drive F (my external drive), I receive "Cannot create a file when that file already exists" :( I've tried renaming the MobileSync and other random folder names on the F drive, and I receive the same response in the dialog box. UGH!

[@erdemcanersin853]

same issue here

[@j0lla127]

Does it matter what windows you have? For example, windows 7 & 8?

[@herbegcm]

This used to be a great workaround, but on the newest versions of Windows it doesn't work anymore. Bummer.

[@tengabs]

Hi, George! Your tutorial works perfectly. I just have one question, how do I revert it back to the old settings? I want to backup my new iPhone to my Computer this time. But I keep on getting an error that my backup is corrupt. For sure it's because I configured the backup via command prompt. Your reply is highly appreciated. Thanks!

[@ccpang888]

Did you ever get a reply to your question?

[@tengabs]

@@ccpang888 nope

[@primepty]

yes how do I restore from the backup if a change a new iPhone

[@negativezebra9977]

Alright, question! I did not have any previous backups on my PC before following these steps - problem was when I tried to backup the phone, there was not enough storage on the PC. So I bought an external hard drive and followed these steps, sans transferring the backups to the hard drive. I then backed up my phone. iTunes says that the phone was backed up successfully... but the backup is not located on the external hard drive, and it is not in the MobileSync folder on my PC either. Where the heck could it be?!

[@j0lla127]

Would this still work if I'm switching the external hard drive from one computer to a laptop and vice versa? Or, does the external hard drive is assigned to ONE specific computer/laptop?

[@frankmcgorry8956]

Everything went well, but when I tried to go past the command prompt step it would not create the new link back up file it kept saying "local volumes are required to complete the operation". Any idea what that could be/mean?

[@Kailoren37]

Hey, i was having the same problem, what i did was i looked at the E before the last mobilesync/backup and replaced it with a D or whichever drive you are fowarding the information towards. This problem acurs when you are fowarding information to a drive that doesnt exist

[@johnhanley1886]

So with slight edits to command prompt ie my external drive is the E drive, this worked fantastically! It took a bit of time for ALL the files I had so patience was important. Many thanks again for his very helpful solution.

[@Hudes86]

how would i reverse this if i no longer use the external hardrive and want to make a brand new backup on my PC?

[@sajeelkhalid5791]

now if i have to restore this backup on my iphone is it going to be just simple tap on the itunes to resore while making my external hard drive connected?

[@kurtjanssen792]

How to correct the following when I attempt to make the MKLink => Local volumes are required to complete the operation.

[@AYZ223S]

same

[@AYZ223S]

Just fixed it, you have to replace the link with your information instead

[@jujuskidoo]

@@AYZ223S I had this problem too. What do you mean replace the link with my info?

[@AYZ223S]

@@jujuskidoo Msg me on ig I’ll explain

[@AYZ223S]

@@jujuskidoo @thankyouflawless

[@darrel_dsouza]

How do we restore backup from external drive?

[@Jimmy-Miami]

Does the external hard drive have to be connected all the time or only when backing up your iPhone?

[@SwellKel50]

it is telling me I cannot create a file that already exists in the command prompt

[@jenjen4951]

Excellent tutorial! The only change I required was to use a symbolic link instead of junction. Thanks for this video. I've been stuck for months needing to backup my phone to an external drive via iTunes on Windows.

[@mrfree47-im1ir]

Can you please explain this? So it’s always worked for me, but now I updated iTunes and when backing up I’m getting the error “iTunes could not back up the Phone "____ iPhone because the backup was corrupt. Delete the backup for this iPhone in Devices Preferences, then try again.” I’ve tried redoing the process and get the same error.

[@deathrings2]

Hi, so when it comes to restoring my backup to my new iPhone I would need to connect my external hard drive or no?

[@hopkat]

excellent video. it worked! (after a few syntax errors of my own making and changing the drive letter to match my external drive)

[@famiarojas]

great tutorial and solution. Just found it after 3 years.

[@supriyomondal8829]

The method you showed on mac was working perfectly. Now suddenly my mac has started auto ejecting external hdd or ssd..i tried with a new ssd too. Can't even use the capture image feature.

[@daviddelamitri]

I am probably being very stupid but when I copy the link into the command prompt it says you cannot create a link that already exists. But it doesn't exist

[@VinculumConstruction]

why is it document format? what happened?

[@mrfree47-im1ir]

Any chance someone could help me out? So it’s always worked for me, but now I updated iTunes and when backing up I’m getting the error: “iTunes could not back up the Phone "_____ iPhone because the backup was corrupt. Delete the backup for this iPhone in Devices Preferences, then try again.” I’ve tried redoing this process and get the same error.

[@jaisalte]

Halo please help me I have back up in computer does not show iTunes how to fix

[@archsparrow]

my computer said original backup file was too large to be deleted into the Recycle Bin. I don't want to delete it permanently though. Is there another way?

[@FlameSpeak]

tyvm! It's so unfortunate that Apple doesn't provide this much needed function directly in the iTunes UI. But, thanks entirely to you my friend, I can finally do a full backup of my iPhone 15 Pro Max! Thanks a million & kudos!!

[@IronTWest]

Great job & video. Thank you. Following your instructions, I was able to save my iPhone backup data via iTunes to my external HD as my internal SSD HD was only 64Gb...

[@tonyursulich3614]

This worked perfectly, very simple to follow thank you very much for the video!!

[@mirkoarcoleo7895]

I get the error "Access denied" when i ran the code. how can I fix this?

[@stephf.2325]

Hi George - Thanks for posting this - very helpful. When I am looking at my local drive, it still looks like it's using space on that drive...when I look at size on disc, it shows 6.54GB. My goal was to have the iphone backup on my external hard drive only, not on my local drive. Any suggestions for how to accomplish this? Thanks for any advice you can share!

[@Evelyn55515]

I would suggest pulling up two tabs, one of the local drive and one from the external drive, then copy the folder from local and paste it into the external, or click and drag the file folder from local to external. This should start copying everything over to the external. Once that’s done check your files are properly moved over, I like to plug into another computer and make sure it’s pulling up and not corrupted. Then I can delete the local drive and my backup is on my external.

[@weilingiam9618]

Hi, I have used this but there seems to be a limit of being able to store 20GB into a external hard disk. Could you clarify if such an issue has happened to you and how did you solve it?

[@rahulagrawal8887]

what if we dont have space on the PC in the first place?

[@jjjsss3869]

He made the video for clickbait. the misleading title proves it.

[@arthurnovak577]

Exactly. Every video I've seen does not address that problem. What we're after is a solution to copy to an external hard dive because we DON'T have even space on our C-Drive... obviously! If anyone has an ACTUAL solution, do tell, thanks

[@zacsimillion]

@@arthurnovak577 Not obviously. This was the video I needed. Who buys a computer to begin with that has a smaller hard drive than an iphone?

[@mattj6588]

@@arthurnovak577 I backed up about 10 gigs (my remaining space on C drive) and was able to follow this tutorial. In reality I just needed one byte of data for the path to have been created. Worst case scenario you delete some files. You don't have a full drive of direly necessary files, lol. Blows my mind how people who don't know how to solve problems can use computers

[@Flippy_808]

@@zacsimillion😂😂

[@IM_ROCKSHROOM]

I dont have a Mobilesync folder

[@pranavpithadia]

Awesome video. Thank you for this

[@j0lla127]

How do you know if the Itune was from the web or MS store?

[@j0lla127]

Nvm, he says if it's downloaded from the MS store, it'll say APPLE. If it's from the WEB, AppData.

[@gettingitright5998]

This guy is legit, great video sir.

[@aliciahenderson6673]

I don’t have an apple computer and don’t want to use iTunes. How do I backup my iPhone 11 to an external device using windows without iTunes or apple computer?

[@cambuddy_vibes]

It shows cannot create a file when that already exists

[@liliangunderson4819]

same for me

[@mrlebanon6055]

rewatch the video, you need to delete the real file after u copied it to the external drive.

[@williamcase426]

Good idea 👍💡

[@SnakeGreen]

Thank you! This worked

[@ryanalameen9672]

Excellent job thank you

[@abdulelahabulfaraj7594]

Thank you so much, it was tricky and difficult

[@MonieMuse]

Genius!! Thank you!!

[@askerinho]

how do i undo this? i made this path but now i cant add or delete anything my ssd

[@jbdrums1]

I have windows 10. I would like to route I Tunes to backup my phone to my external SSD i'm worried. I won't be able to follow these instructions good enough can someone chat with me thru it?

[@jbdrums1]

when I do it, it says system cannot find the path specified

[@ver5ace]

sou brasileiro e adorei o seu video!!! você me ajudou demais! obrigado pelo ótimo tutorial!

[@pietervanleijen8000]

Great job!

[@travisparkerplantscience]

Awesome! Thanks!

[@nanaoseibonsu9992]

Thank you it worked for me

[@AGallegos288]

OMG THIS WORKED!!! TYSM

[@AGallegos288]

I will reply and state I had to do this twice, and restarted my Itunes and unplugged my phone because when I first tried it and attempted to backup my phone I still was receiving the "Not enough storage" error message even though the file junction was properly created

[@bailey179]

THANK YOU BROTHER

[@lauk9099]

Thank you!

[@SecondsToInspire]

solid vid

[@SwellKel50]

where is the fucking article for the command prompt?!?!

[@CarazyDiamond]

dONE THAT & BEST OF ALL THAT WORKS TOO!!

[@kaiquekanehira2666]

Thank you so much, your video helped me a lot! Clear and precise instructions!

[@sppedyboogers]

how am i supposed to get the backup in my external if i can't get the backup on my C drive in the first place 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀

[@crasoponce1338]

Nghe phúc hát thấy ấm âp quá殺

[@germiegurm]

W

[@CarlosSantos-nk6qp]

windows' WTF ???

[@hellraiserx9490]

OMG, blah blah blah get to the point already!

[@christopherantus2306]

Wonderful video! Thank you!