How do I move the location of my iTunes backups?

I assume you know where your backups go. If so you might try creating a folder on your external with the same name.

Worked for me with my older OS.

Location of backups:

Users > me > Library > Application Support > MobileSync > Backup

Copy the 'Backup' folder to your external, or if you have already, make sure name is the same as what iTunes expects

Make an alias of same

Copy alias to the user library location (see if above applies)

Delete the Backup folder (having already copied to the external)

Rename 'Backup alias' to Backup

iTunes will now write to the external providing you connect the external before starting iTunes and connecting your iDevice.

This method works for music, photos etc. using the same name as the folder the Mac generally writes to.

See Relocate iOS device backups. Review the rest of the Make a split library portable user tip for advice on organizing the library on external storage.

A recent change to the forum software has messed up the formatting of the user tip somewhat. The terminal command should look like this:

ln -s "/Volumes/<New Volume>/MobileSync/Backup" "/Users/<User>/Library/Application Support/MobileSync"

Where <New Volume> is the name of the volume you want to store the data on, and <User> is the name of your profile. If there are spaces in the path wrap with quotes or escape with backslash. It is probably easier to type in ln -s then drag and drop the two folders onto the command line in turn.

tt2

You may want to look at the other things in your home folder

that are using up space. There is likely a lot that you don't need

to have available on a daily basis and can move them to an

external drive to gain space. Typically iDevice backups will be using much

less space than those items.

Other options, you can move your entire iTunes library to and external

drive, especially if you have a lot of movies or TV shows or you can simply

remove them and download again as desired.

Also, if your Photos library is large, you can do the same with that.

"when you say that iTunes will write to the external drive after you do all the other steps, what do you have to do in order to let iTunes know to back up to that external"

iTunes writes to where ever the original of the alias is.

Works music files or for iPhoto images etc.

As long as the folder on the external has the exact name as the original (before deletion) folder that the program was writing to. The 'alias' part of the name must be removed after copying to the proper location in your user folder.

The external must be connected before opening the program.