Change iPhone Backup Directory macOS Catalina (Part 1)

[@TechCoreDuo]

(Part 1&2 Revised for BigSur) Also includes how to restore. kzbin.info/www/bejne/rKeld4dtaNdljqc (restore starts at 8min 42sec)

[@waynemancao2944]

IMPORTANT: If your external storage has a name with spaces (e.g. “WD 25E1”) at 5:04 you should key it in as mkdir /Volumes/“WD 25E1”/iosbackup Hope it helps!

[@sb607790118]

may i know why show the -bash: in: command not found ? I have tried so many times

[@nadia19963]

I get permission denied in this step :/

[@TechCoreDuo]

Check the description. You need to give Terminal full disk access to work

[@nadia19963]

I already did that step, still no luck tho

[@eumarcas5904]

@@nadia19963 It happens to me too, I get "Permission denied" When trying to create the file in the hard drive. Please help

[@chrispolii5026]

This is an absolute lifesaver! Mac running critical on storage as my iPhone backup took up 480gb of available 500gb drive. Every online help on this transfer gave a vague link to input and it keeps returning as "directory not found" on Terminal. This drag the folder in method is a miracle! Nothing can go wrong that way and only then did I realised there are other input to key in such in user, before the whole Library command. Thanks mate! Feel so liberated!!!!

[@phyllisoh3264]

Thank you so much. It’s very useful, however, will you guide me how to restore the backup from External Harddrive to iPhone?

[@naylor2006]

Surely this just works doesn't it as Finder/iTunes will just look to the linked external drive and restore no?

[@kaitlynwhite6218]

Does anyone know how ?

[@TechCoreDuo]

Yes the restore is shown at the 8min 24sec mark on the part2 video Backup & Restore iPhone External Drive (Part 1&2) kzbin.info/www/bejne/rKeld4dtaNdljqc

[@TechCoreDuo]

@@kaitlynwhite6218 kzbin.info/www/bejne/rKeld4dtaNdljqc (look at the 8min 24sec)

[@SemanadePapel]

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!! I tried several guides but they weren’t detailed enough for someone like me, who had never tried something like this, to follow. I hadn’t typed commands in at least 20 years but your video was so clear and the pace was so perfect that I could follow it without problems. Thank you again!!!

[@TechCoreDuo]

IMPORTANT: I forgot to mention a small step you need to give Terminal "Full Disk Access" by going to System Preferences - Security & Privacy - Privacy - Full Disk Access - Add Terminal to the list by dragging the app into the window.

[@Alchemist081]

What should you do if you try to test if everything works by backing up your iPhone, and it tells you “an error occurred while reading from or writing to the iPhone” ?

[@moojojom]

so i realise when i try to create a folder thru terminal i am not able to. But i have to create the folder in harddrive with the name iosbackup then go back to the terminal to do the backup folder. it will work. but when i hit the last code, which is changing the location, it say my was illegal action. when ever my HD need to add folder i need to include password, is there anyway i can remove it?

[@ahmedalsherebi540]

it didnt work for me in the beginning because of this

[@lisama2748]

Even I grant it full disk access but it still shows permission denied?? So weird

[@elveracampbell9248]

This doesn't work for me.

[@jdchucho]

i tried for so long with so many videos and articles and this one finally worked God bless You!!

[@okifoli]

An absolutely excellent video! Clear, concise and at just the right pace to follow and copy at the same time. Thank you :)

[@JacobSeeger]

Hi thanks so much! However after backing up (and seeing it in my external drive) it's not showing up in my iPhone's Sync Settings under "Device Backups." Any idea on how to fix this?

[@palacci]

Thank you so much. Excellent tutorial. I did a mistake with the names of the folders. Is there any way to fix it and start from the beginning? Thank you

[@eringreen5]

This was so helpful. Thank you! I have very rudimentary computer skills and my husband was unavailable to help. Your step-by-step guide was so easy to follow and made perfect sense.

[@eringreen5]

Is there a trick to getting the new iPhone to recognize the new location of the backup? I'm trying to restore from the backup I created through your video instructions and it appears my computer isn't finding it.

[@Kakalina13]

Thank you!!! I'd looked at many various and sundry directions as to how to change the backup direction (macOS Catalina) and every one of them failed ... until discovering your video instructions. Following our step-by-step instructions it worked the first time! Your careful instruction and video are greatly appreciated.

[@allivoigt1929]

This is a great video! Thank you so much! Is there an easy way to restore (Set up a new iPhone) from the file we just put onto our external hard drive?

[@Malcom2345]

Perfect. Had to add permissions for my ext hard drive also, took around an hr for me all up but wudve been impossible without this walk through. Thanx alot 👊

[@UnrealGamingMedia]

Every article I found explained it similarly, but none would work. I followed your video, and it worked PERFECT. Thank you so much for taking the time to explain and make this video.

[@yigitandic]

It's unbelievable that it takes too many steps to do that on Mac while you can do this simply by choosing the backup location in Windows. Shame on you Apple.

[@parrisimo1]

I'm never buying another apple product again

[@marekcihar]

@@parrisimo1 I am in pain backuping my mothers mac. All you need to do is watch 10 mins video and another 30 mins to execute. Lets make life simple. congrats. I literaly hate mac.

[@chrispolii5026]

Tell me about it. And just to look for the backup folder alone is so tedious! I had to call up Apple and 2 of their advisors attended to me and even they were clueless. After all the methods they could think of cannot trace where my 480gb huge backup folder is, they almost resorted to have me resetting the Mac. I'm like... "The hell! For one folder... I gotta erase and restart the Mac from scratch!?" And now from this video I realised the difficulty of just to find the Library folder that you gotta hold the option button. Unbelievable. Even their own staffs are clueless. That's how complicated this is. 🤦🏽‍♂️

[@remosloot1280]

wait were is that option on windows

[@JosephsJUKEBOX]

This video was perfect! Thank you so much I have been trying to do this for hours and this has been extremely helpful and IT WORKED!

[@jmsvlstrs]

Amazing! This is exactly what i was looking for. I have 4 iPhone to Backup and it was taking up 600 GB on my MAC's Drive leaving me with less than 20 GB of available space. This has solved my problems. THank you.

[@koarliii]

Thanks for the easy to understand, step by step tutorial - best one I have found so far! :)

[@raminr2784]

Thank you, can you also do an update on the Big Sur, most parts where the same except the name change command didn't work for me, I had to do it through the folder, other than that it worked perfectly, I really appreciate it.

[@kenzo119]

Somehow my backup stuck at around 95% and doesn't finish there. I'm running BigSur atm :(

[@rapsrabbithole]

Thank you for this video took me hours of searching to find a solid that actually worked and this was so easy to follow

[@amanagarwal202]

You're amazing man! I just solved this issue so seamlessly by watching this. Great work!

[@TechCoreDuo]

Great to hear!

[@craiga2001]

Worked for me, tried so many other instructions that failed this worked perfectly. Thank you!

[@bozparts3128]

I did this and worked very well, but I have a question. My external drive is full and I want to use another external drive for backup's. How do I change the backup location from external drive to another external drive?

[@RENDIZAIN]

Please help me. In terminal. Mv backup old-itunes-backup. Operational not permitted.

[@DinodogJr]

This video saves my effort to follow article which still i failed on. During create the shortcut, 'in -s' is actually 'L' not an 'i'. Listen to the audio or turn on the CC.

[@annagala7144]

God bless you ☀️ I just realized I’ve made the same mistake!!

[@ronnieoutatime8028]

Can you please do a video explaining how to reverse this process? I want to re-direct my iCloud Backup to the original settings.

[@Ninatube232]

I think you plug in your phone, dont plug in the external drive, Move your backup folders under the symlink "Backups" folder to another folder of your choice. Then click manage backup and it will automatically create a new folder in MobileSync. So you can move your files to that non symlinked Backup folder in MobileSync that it created for you.

[@housem.d.3459]

Change directory at first! That's it! Thank you!

[@naylor2006]

Thanks man, so useful, great video. I like to backup locally over iCloud but I recently ran outta space to going to an external SSD is great. Thanks so much dude!

[@Rahul-kf9dl]

Worked for me after trying other video tutorials that hadn't. Thanks !

[@pamieafg]

Hi there! Thanks so much for this tutorial. It was easy to follow and I was able to move the backup to my external hard drive. I do have an issue where my finder does not show my last backup or have the option to manage the backup. Please advice what I should do or how to reverse this process. Another video with this topic could be really useful for many of us in the comment section. Thanks for your knowledge! Stay safe.

[@jammeezze]

Hi, thanks so much for the helpful video. How do I get the backup off of my external hard drive and onto my new phone?

[@tutibiri]

Hi there! Many thanks for this solution for the ones lacking space for iPhone backups in our computers. After going trough this tutorial, I have effectively created all pertaining folders and directories. My only problem is every time I backup my iPhone to external hard drive, all new backups create with same folder name. Afterwards, when managing backups from finder, some backups show as UNKNOWN. Is there some way around this? Thanks in advance!

[@stanley_agi]

same here..

[@bonnevilleponds]

When I try to create the final ln link to the backup folder terminal says it is an illegal Option?

[@davidboyes7894]

I have the answer for this one. On the terminal page, do as instructed above but after "ln -s" ADD A SPACE and then insert everything else. Worked for me.

[@knovellcapote]

@@davidboyes7894 YOU ARE A LEGEND WITH THIS ONE !!

[@dityful]

@@davidboyes7894 You Are Legend

[@karinzekveld4920]

This video was very helpful thank you! Is there any different process I need to follow when restoring from this backup in the future?

[@lovebangladesh34]

I have tried few other videos and didn't work for me. But this video worked perfectly. thanks

[@benhousten1211]

Thanks! This is a great video. I really like this. I want to backup one iphone to my external drive, and backup another one up to my MacBook Pro Catalina. Once I create the link, will the backups go to their respective appropriate locations depending on whether I've plugged my external drive in or left it unplugged? Thanks again!

[@richarddupiton3966]

Thanks for this video! it was easy to follow and solved a problem I've been ignoring for years!

[@fonsecamikester]

Hey thanks for this really helpful video. Will it work if the back up drive is formatted as ExFAT instead of Mac OS Extended Journaled?

[@TechCoreDuo]

Sorry, no it will not work in ExFAT.

[@fonsecamikester]

TechCoreDuo oh ok thanks for the reply.

[@fonsecamikester]

@@TechCoreDuo just a follow up question. If I keep backing up my phone say every month, those backups would accumulate and eat in to my hard drive space correct? Do you recommend deleting older back ups and keeping only the most recent one?

[@Puchmiz]

I tried and it worked fine on my external ssd.

[@danielsilver1284]

Thanks for this great video ! Everything worked as you said except the fact that after the iPhone has backed up (I can see it has as all of the backup files have gone into the external hard drive no problem) that in "manage backups" this is still showing as empty with know backups in there. Would you be able to help on this ? Without showing the backup in there you cannot restore if you ever need to.....

[@1986vijz]

Does this method apply for the encrypted backup as well?

[@3maharris]

Worked well but I had two glitches. First I needed to give Terminal Full Disk Access. Failure to do this gives a permissions error. Secondly, I had to turn off iCloud backup on the iOS device. With cloud backup on the Backup Now feature in Finder fails without any details given. Just lucked out on the last one.

[@TechCoreDuo]

Thank you for this info, very helpful. I’ve pinned your comment to the top.

[@kenyoumans8999]

Thanks for this TechCore, but I'm also getting the No Such File or Directory when I get to the part where you set a new directory in your drive. I'm wondering if I screwed up back when I named my external drive like "Word1 Word2 Word3" with spaces. Anyone know if this may be why the directory can't be found?

[@mandar5005]

same issue...

[@youngsumma]

DUDE, THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!! I was hurting for space on my MacBook

[@ayemontoya93]

Thank you for taking the time to create this useful video!

[@TechCoreDuo]

Thanks!

[@ming1014ming]

Hi great video! How do I undo it if I want to backup my IPhone to my Mac

[@randycasey99]

Anytime I tried to rename the folder it tells me no such file or directory please help

[@craftingcrabs]

Thank you for making this video! I read so many articles on how to do this and your video was super clear and concise! Keep up the good work!

[@TechCoreDuo]

Thank you!

[@sOuThSiDe69Josh]

Hey guys, I recently watched your video on changing the location of iPhone backups and during the process I have lost the MobileSync folder.. just wondering if you could point me in the right direction to getting it back? Look forward to hearing from you.

[@bmobuell]

Great video. Can I change the backup location to a usb flash drive as well? Instead of a external HD. Do I need to format the USB flash drive? Like you mentioned about the formatting the HD. Thanks !!

[@twitterkid1213]

Thank you, I was going mad trying to read all the articles that people were saying, seeing & doing always work best for me. Thank you again!

[@JohnnieTycoon]

Can we use this technique with NAS ?

[@AlanChen]

what do i do if i don't see my iphone in the finder(location) i am using Mojave 10.14

[@zeeozzy9129]

typically you can find it on you iTunes if you have it on your computer, there should be a small phone icon at the top of it when you connect your phone

[@gladisarossafitri119]

How about when we want to restore our previous backup? Do we need to put the backup file back to mobile sync or we can just click the restore backup?

[@Sureshbabu-sydney]

Thanks a Ton mate .. it worked seamlessly ... excellent step-by-step instructions ... got 50G released from my SSD ... cheers

[@jasonmamoamamoa-mamoa3377]

Am I correct in thinking that the folder called "Backup" that is within the folder called "iosbackup" can be named anything else as well (e.g. "iphone11-backup"), as long as I rewrite change the relevant line of code to say the same. In short, can my folder that I back up onto be called whatever I want? Thank you for your help!

[@meekojj]

OMG thank you! I tried for so long with so many videos and articles and this one finally worked. God bless You!!

[@TechCoreDuo]

Great to hear!

[@danielcastro6686]

Will this work with a 2nd internal hardrive?

[@MrIDGAF]

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but can you restore an iphone from a backup on the external drive? Without moving the ios backup's back into the internal drive. Thank you.

[@jlovee13]

Hi! I just tried this and after the first time, it synced but it didn't show up under "Manage Backups" and last time synced to mac is set to "unknown." Every time I try to sync it now, it takes forever to sync then at the last few mb's, it doesn't finish syncing. Is there a way to reverse this in terminal? Thanks

[@h.k1861]

Thank you for the helpful video.. I came up to the point where I had to change the back up folder name on terminal but my computer gives the following command " rename Backup to old-itunes-backup: Operation not permitted" ?? Please help

[@rick1123us]

Just a quick question, what to do if we have to do multiple devices backup?

[@GO-ke9qd]

I followed all the steps, when I make the backup it is stored outside the backup folder (inside mobile sync) and not on my external disk, please help!

[@viralchopra917]

I want to backup my complete iphone on icloud, like the one you do it with wire on macs. With icloud photo disabled and iphone backup enabled. Will my regular scheduled backups over the cloud will include my locally stored pictures also?

[@viralchopra917]

I'll be using a external SSD. Is it mandatory format it to macos journal?

[@Anto124]

hello I did all now the question is how to restore from backup please?

[@NA-ig7kd]

Great step by step! I did everything as per your instructions...iphone backed up onto my USB drive. However when I click manage backups, the backups do not show in the box. I confirmed the backup is on the USB. Any help would be appreciated.

[@jessicapena2]

This worked perfectly for my computer! I've been looking at other videos that follow just terminal steps, but not as detailed as this video lol. The only thing now is that I've moved all of my old backups into my hard drive, and they show an uploading symbol even though they finished transferring. Is that normal?

[@vo5man]

This helped me so much! Thank you for providing this content!

[@TechCoreDuo]

I'm so glad!

[@mosesvillani651]

When i look for MoblieSync again it doesn't show! Please help!

[@gilbertsanchez3862]

I keep trying to do it but it says “no such file or directory”

[@atnan77]

Same... did you find a fix

[@Back-Air]

@@atnan77 hi do you still have the issue ? if yes you can ask me on discord Back air#4391 I used this for different puproses as well so I know how it works if you don't have discord tell me something else I can contact you in

[@hamdaalzaffin9815]

I had the same problem but fixed it by dragging the folder and deleting (users/username .. until /library) later on follow the steps exactly

[@kh2maniac]

Bair hi I am having this issue too. Can you help?

[@DorotheasFavs]

Read his pinned comment. This solved that problem for me.

[@idotoledano3654]

every thing is working for me until i try to do the backup. when i press the 'back up now" it starts backing up on the computer internal drive again, and not into the external one. pls help me!!

[@vo5man]

I have the same problem! did u manage to figure it out

[@benjaminkruger5379]

Hi, can I also just make an alias with a right click instead of typing terminal commands? cheers Benjamin

[@simirock]

can you tell how to restore a backup from external harddrive?

[@mandar5005]

plz help : m getting a "/Users/apuu/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup: No such file or directory" error message

[@sathtraem]

Do you need to have your iPhone and your external drive both plug in at the same time? My dongle I use for my macbook only has one USB port so I backup my iPhone to my mac and then copied the file to the external harddrive. I tried using the terminal to "symlink" but I don't think it worked. I would appreciate if you could do a video of this. Thanks.

[@RufusEatsCheese]

Great tutorial, thanks man! Symbolic link - so simple. I love that in 2020 with such great tech, we can still rely on solid old Unix system admin. You just saved me 60+GB from my MBP internal disk - thanks :-)

[@michaelcroft4445]

Great video! Found different ways to do it online, but this was definltey the most informative and helpful one!

[@BogoEN]

Thank you, thank you, THANK you. There were multiple articles online that had shorter versions of this that failed on my Mac. Thank you again :-)

[@pastamotion3032]

Thanks for this movie it was very helpful for me to do straight backup to my home NAS

[@martinredvfr]

Great!! Many thanks - I learnt a few new things there!

[@narongrattanachuen8958]

I want say it’s working,I have been try on many youtuber non of them work until I found you ☺️

[@abhishekdesai5209]

Thanks for the video It is very helpful.. But I have one problem. When I created new backup directly into my hard drive. It has the same name of the folder "00008030-000E-202911B8802F". Now the problem is I can not move my old backup to the new place.. Hoping to hearing from you soon.. :)

[@Trulywittatooly]

Wow i love you! One year later and you have helped me a lot!!! ❤️❤️❤️

[@bhazlett10]

Excellent video! Thanks for sharing. Worked like a charm.

[@abduttaiyebjawad]

is it possible in exFAT format? Please respond.

[@sumeetchanana8670]

is there also a way to change the path of mail app storage to an SD card or external storage?

[@ilikebobies]

What if my hard drive is exFat? Does it have to by extended journal?

[@malcdickinson06]

great video, does this work with Monterey?

[@TechCoreDuo]

it should

[@Cathy.C.]

@TechCoreDuo. I have followed your instructions and my backup is just under halfway done and it's been 12 hours so far. Doesn't seem right. Any idea?

[@samyukthav3785]

Hello, everything worked and I got the alias done, (also gave Full Disk Access), but when I started to backup, the circular arrow didn't appear. It worked after a couple attempts but stopped halfway. Do you have any advise? Please let me know, thanks!

[@iloveiphone5751]

Hi, was trying to follow all the guidlines, but i get this: mv: rename Backup to old-itunes-backup: Operation not permitted. Any advice? Thanks a lot!

[@Phetsr929]

Thank you. It worked

[@AS67373]

hello, everything worked when I backed up my phone it showed the correct timestamp but I can't find it on 'manage backups'

[@mahdiedrees8284]

i have the same issue !

[@mahdiedrees8284]

did u have a solution for that?

[@randoz4071]

@@mahdiedrees8284 i had that problem too but then i did it again and made sure that my computer didn't turn off. and then it worked

[@bereitedich]

Thank you so much for a helpful and wonderful video. I have done everything you explained and it worked great; creating folders via Terminal etc. But once I click "Back Up Now" in finder, I get the message "Could not back up iPhone because not enough free space is available on this Mac." I am trying to back up about 80 gigs of iPhone backup file to more than plenty(546 gigs available) on my external hard drive. My Mac currently has only 33 gigs of free space. Any advice? Thanks so much for reading and it would be so helpful if you could guide me a bit!

[@NICKSHI]

does the external disk have to be formatted as Mac extended journal? my external hdd is currently formatted "APFS" is that ok?

[@onolicious9147]

Will this method work with Ventura? It’s amazing how apple has removed ability to easily backup iPhone to external drive to force people into using iCloud.

[@sampainter5012]

Great video, exactly what I needed

[@TheAmjisme]

Thank you so much for this video I followed it and everything worked initially but lately everytime I plug my iphone in and try to backup I just get the spinning wheel next to the phone and even clicking the the x to stop it doesn't work. Is this a problem with ios 15 catalina?

[@kidzchat3708]

Thank you.. The process is the same for recent macOS BigSur update... I really appreciate the video!!

[@TechCoreDuo]

Yes it will work in BigSur here is my updated video in BigSur showing how to restore from backup HOW TO RESTORE: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rKeld4dtaNdljqc (starts at the 8:42 mark)