How to transfer iphone to external hard drive

There's never too many photos on iPhone, right? Wrong. When it comes to backing up your iOS device, endless photos, messages, and files can suffocate your internal storage on Mac.

The first way to solve the problem is pretty straightforward: Keep your iPhone or iPad clean. It became a bit easier with the release of iOS 13, which allows removing similar shots and clutter from your Photos gallery automatically. If you take your gallery cleanness seriously, you can go further and install a smart duplicate finder like Gemini on your phone. Whether you're an Instagram husband/wife, or simply love good photography — this is a pro-level tool to save your disk space. 

Back up iPhone to External Storage

Get the best Mac apps to back up and transfer data from iPhone, iPad, iTunes, iCloud to external drives without any loss.

Try free

But what if photos are not the problem? Sometimes it's about text docs, mail attachments — lots of small files that become heavier and heavier as they pile up. It will take hours of work to free up storage space manually. So we suggest you don't. You can solve the problem by changing iPhone backup location instead. 

In this guide, we'll tell you everything about where iPhone and iPad backups are stored by default, how to move them to an external drive, and what's the best Mac tool for running direct iOS backups. 

How to change iPhone backup location on Mac

There are two Apple ways to backup iOS devices to Mac — using iTunes or iCloud. None of them is very easy. We've prepared detailed instructions on how to locate and move iPhone backup to an external drive both ways. If you follow these, nothing could go wrong. 

Locate iOS backups in iTunes/Finder 

Here's how you find a list of iOS backups if you use iTunes: 

1. Click on the Spotlight Search button in the menu bar
2. Type the following command: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
3. Hit Return. 

The mechanism is a bit different if you're searching for a specific backup. In this case, go to iTunes > Preferences > Devices. Control-click the selected backup and select Show in Finder from the drop-down menu. 

Note that if you're using macOS Catalina or later, you'll have to locate backups via Finder, while newer operating systems don’t have iTunes in its original form: 

1. Open a new Finder window
2. Select Go > Go to Folder
3. Type the command ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
4. Hit Go. 
5. Access your Backup folder from there. 
   

An important thing to remember is that you shouldn't copy or extract specific files from your Backup folder — this might lead to your files being ruined. What you have to do is to copy and transfer an entire folder. 

Locate iOS backups in iCloud 

If you use iCloud for iPhone backups, you don't have to suffer from the low storage problem. Once your iPhone or iPad files are backed up, you can simply delete the backups. None of your valuable data will be damaged. 

How to remove backups from iPhone or iPad and turn off backup for your device. 

1. Go to Settings > Your Name > iCloud
2. Click Manage Storage > Backups for iOS 11 and iCloud Storage > Manage Storage for iOS 10.3
3. Select your device name
4. Delete Backup > Turn Off and Delete. 
   

On your Mac: 

1. Apple menu > System Preferences > Apple ID > iCloud
2. Select Manage and click on the Backups
3. With the backup selected, click Delete to remove the backup. Confirm that you would also like to turn off Backup if needed. 

Backup iPhone to external hard drive 

For those who backup via iTunes/Finder, the journey isn't finished. Now it's time to backup iPhone to USB drive, an external hard drive that won't affect your storage on Mac. This should be done very carefully. Any attempt to extract files from the backup folder or using the wrong name of a hard drive may end up in a failure. 

Also, let us warn you in advance that you shouldn't delete a backup after you move it to the new storage location. Before you do anything to your old iOS backups, make sure you set iTunes to backup from the hard drive. Let's go through it step by step. 

Back up content

Create a copy of your iPhone or iPad content in seconds and schedule regular backups to keep your data safe.

Try free

How to save iPhone backup to external hard drive: 

1. Connect your external hard drive to Mac and open it. 
2. Select the backup folder from the Finder window or iTunes. Usually, the name of the backup folder consists of random numbers and letters, or it's called "Backup." 
3. Drag the entire folder — couldn't emphasize it more — to your external drive. 
4. Type your admin password. 
5. Rename the backup folder to "iOS_backup" and enter the admin password once again to confirm your action. 

Now, the most delicate part. It's not enough to create iPhone external storage, you have to tell iTunes where it is to ensure the backups will be done externally from now on. To make that work, you should create a new path — or a so-called symbolic link — for iTunes/Finder.

Before you dive into it, make sure you allow Full Disk Access for Terminal. You'll have to enable it manually if you use macOS Mojave. In this case, go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy. Unlock by entering your admin password and click Full Disk Access. Add Terminal to the list of apps with full access permission via the plus button. 

Create a symlink

Can you backup an iPhone to an external hard drive without a symlink? Not without using third-party tools. So let’s dive in into what symlink is and how to create it.

Symlink actually stands for “symbolic link” and is simply a file that contains the path to your backup. In a word, a bookmark.

If you want to save an iPhone backup to an external drive, your system needs to know where to put the files, so creating a symlink is essential. As outlined above, symlink is created with the help of Terminal.

First, give Terminal Full Disk Access in your Mac’s System Preferences. Next, open Terminal and type in the following command:

ln -s/Volumes/Nameofyourexternaldrive/ios_backup/~/Library/Application Support /MobileSync/Backup/Nameofyourbackupfolder

Replace “Nameofyourexternaldrive” and “Nameofyourbackupfolder” with respective values — an exact name of the hard drive you are using (should be displayed in Finder) and the name of the backup folder for the iPhone or the iPad.

You've done everything right if you can find a newly created symlink file with the name of your backup folder in the MobileSync folder. The file icon should have an arrow in the bottom left corner. 

How to remove the symlink and go back to restoring your backups on your Mac

As you can see, while you can backup an iPhone directly to an external drive, it takes quite a few steps. If you decide to remove symlink and use a more straightforward tool, you can just type in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup in Spotlight to locate your folder, open it, and simply delete it.

Backing up to an external drive: How to check it works? 

Now when you've backed up iPhone to portable hard drive, run a test to see whether iTunes is really backing up from the new location: 

1. Connect your iPhone or iPad. 
2. Launch iTunes or find your device via Finder. 
3. Select Back Up Now.  
4. With the backup completed, open the iOS_backup folder on the external drive. 
5. Check the date and time of the last backup — it should coincide with your recent activity. 

Only after the test proves successful can you delete your old backups. 

How to backup iPhone directly to external drive 

There are two big problems with iTunes backups. And we can understand why you say "nay" to both of them. First of all, if you're backing up with iTunes or iCloud, you never know what files are covered. While you have to move an entire folder to your external drive, there's no way to check what's inside — not to mention selecting specific files for a backup.  

Back up content

Create a copy of your iPhone or iPad content and schedule backups to keep your data safe with AnyTrans.

Try free

Another thing is Terminal commands can go wrong —  and they often do. A single mistake can break the whole process, so you'll have to start all over again. The good news is you can actually back up iPhone to an external hard drive without iTunes and iCloud. The tool that you need for that is called AnyTrans for iOS. 

AnyTrans is a Mac utility that handles connections across iOS, macOS, and AnyDroid for Android devices. And by "connections" we mean lots of useful things that built-in utilities like iTunes can't handle: 

• Transfer media files, including photos, messages, and documents from your iPhone/iPad to Mac. 
• Back up your iOS device to an external drive in seconds. 
• Preview files that you're backing up and select your custom file types if you don't want to back up everything. 
• Preview old iCloud and iTunes backups and transfer files from your old backup directly to an external drive. 

The backup process is a four-step deal if you use AnyTrans — instead of complicated Terminal commands. Here's how you back up directly to an external drive: 

1. Connect your iPhone or iPad to Mac and open AnyTrans. 
2. Click on Backup Manager > Back Up
3. Choose the files you want to back up
4. Choose your external drive as the target save location and click on the Next button to start backing up.

That's it. Everything you've backed up will now appear on your external drive. Also, check out information about what do you do if your iPhone won't turn on at all.

Let's sum up with a few tips that will help you keep your iPhone data protected: 

Double protection 

If you're determined to use the built-in tools for your iOS and iPad backups, we recommend using both iCloud and iTunes/Finder. It's never a waste of time when it comes to ensuring your data security. So in case something goes wrong, you'll have a backup plan. Pun intended. 

Move backups across storages

Maybe you have lots of data. Or, you simply prefer cloud storage to storing your files on a local drive. That's understandable. To ensure nothing gets lost in the shuffle, use CloudMounter to mount your cloud drives as local disks and thus, transfer backups across multiple storages flexibly. 

✕ Remove app banner

Two (or 240) for the price of one 

Both AnyTrans and CloudMounter are available with a Setapp subscription. Setapp is a package of curated Mac and iOS utilities that solve the majority of jobs on your devices. So if you get a Setapp subscription, you'll be able to handle automatic iOS backups, move backups across storage, and a million other things.

Why you should use an external storage for backup

Now you know how to store iPhone backup on an external drive or in cloud storage and can choose the most suitable option for your daily routine. Making sure your most valuable data is safe and has a backup copy is vital, so take the time to arrange for your most optimal solution.

As detailed above, you can create an external copy of your device’s files into an external folder with the help of iTunes or a cloud storage in iCloud. You can also use third-party tools to make your backup process seamless and breezy.

AnyTrans for iOS and CloudMounter are excellent solutions you can try for quick, hassle-free backups that require next to zero technical skills and save you time on figuring out all the nitty-gritty. Feels like something you’d be into? Try both apps and many more tools for productivity and better efficiency on Setapp now!

Can you connect an iPhone to external hard drive?

Can I transfer from iPhone to external hard drive without computer?