Extracting files from an old iPhone backup on my Mac

Download Find Any File and have it search for that file by name. Spotlight does not search certain directories but Find Any File can be instructed to search everywhere including hidden files and directories.

A separate question: do you have any backups (Time Machine or other) of your computer?

And, as was properly pointed out by QuickTimeKirk, these iPhone backups are really only usable as a complete iPhone restore vehicle. All or nothing. There are utilities you can buy (non-Apple) that claim to be able extract your Messages, Photos, etc. from backups, but I have found those utilities to be problematic. So if we are able to locate and make your Dec 12 backup work with this iPhone, it would restore it in its entirety to the way it was on Dec 12.

I feel like there are many moving parts here and I don't have all the information. Did you try Find Any File to look for a file with the name shown in your screenshot?

Your iPhone backup from Dec 12 should survive through an iPhone reset (that situation is exactly what these backups are used for, to restore back to the way the phone was on that date), and also through a MacOS reinstall.

You mention "Catalina then reinstalled (?)" but what does that mean? Did you interrupt a Big Sur upgrade from Catalina? Did you create a new user account at any time? Could your iPhone have been backed up to another user account back on Dec. 12?

I also noticed on your screenshot that the box was checked to back up the iPhone to iCloud? Did you do that back on Dec. 12? Have you tried to restore your iPhone from iCloud, if you were using iCloud for iPhone backups (were you)?

You say "with iCloud, every file would be safe." iCloud can, if you elect these options, be used for storing Photos, Contacts, Mail, Calendar, Documents, Messages, Keychain, Safari data, Notes and some other things and make them identically available across multiple platforms (Mac, iPhone, iPad ...). What did you set up iCloud for? It doesn't make extra copies of the iPhone backup files inside your Library folder on your Mac.

But iCloud can also be used to directly backup your iPhone. So you could restore your iPhone from either an iCloud iPhone backup, or from a backup you made on your Mac (that Backup folder inside Library). You can even backup your iPhone to iCloud and also make separate local file backups of the iPhone on a Mac.

J_Ruby wrote:

I did do that backup on the 12th but for whatever reason, I could not restore my iPhone from iCloud. I did use iCloud to backup my phone but the last time I did was probably in December. I set up iCloud on my Mac to store pretty much everything, I suppose I should have known that that would not include iPhone backups.

You have an iCloud backup of your phone that maybe contains the text messages that you want to restore to your phone?

Log in to your iCloud account at iCloud.com. Under account settings, check to see if there is a backup and if there is, it should be taking up at least some gigabytes of space. If there is a backup of your phone there in iCloud, then look in the Apple ID area of your phone Settings, select iCloud, and it should show space used by your phone backup. Your phone must be logged into the same iCloud account. The space used by the phone backup as shown on the iCloud web site should be similar to what the phone says has been used. Click Manage Storage, then click Backups. Then select your device, if there are multiple devices, look at the details for each one. You will be able to see when the last backup was done for your phone to iCloud. If it was reset, there may be two devices listed, even though physically there is just one. What you are looking for is an older backup, under whatever devices are listed, that have the data you want to restore. If the backup was done, say, yesterday, restoring from that backup will restore your phone to the condition it was in yesterday. Which isn't what you want. You want it to be restored to a date from before the date you reset it.

If you find an iCloud backup that has this older data (Messages) that you want, keep in mind that if the backup was made on Dec 12 the restore will make your phone look like it was back on Dec 12. Everything put on the phone since that date will be gone. The Restore process is all or nothing. If you are certain this is what you want to do, you can try the Restore from the specific iCloud Backup that you feel will restore those Messages that you want.

You said earlier that your iCloud Restore did not work. If you are signed into the same and correct iCloud account on your phone and your Mac, this should be straightforward. You did not provide any details about how or why it did not work earlier.

Give iBackup Viewer a try. The free version will let you peruse the contents of the backup and should do what you want. If you have encrypted backups you'll need to purchase the Pro version .

You can't pick through a backup and pull things out.

All you can do use all of it for a restore.

What happens when you try one of the "Restore" buttons?

There are some commercial utilities that claim to be able to restore from these backups, but I have found that they work imperfectly if at all. They may be dependent on certain versions of Music or iTunes, or work for only certain iPhone models.

You can look into that backup file and see many individual files, and you can open some of them as jpg files for images or photos, and some others will have fragments of text messages that you may recognize. However, it is a daunting task to go through them all, it might take months or years with a 7 GB backup.

For the iPhone backup to be recognized and work, it has to be in the user Library folder => Application Support => MobileSync => Backup folder.

Where is that 12-Dec backup file shown in your screenshot, are you saying it is NOT in the specific Library subfolder that normally holds the iPhone backups? I think it has to be in that subfolder for iTunes or (in Catalina) the Finder to offer it as a source to Restore from.

The Genius Bar (or any Apple Authorized Service Provider shop, if the Apple Store is not open, as is the case in my neighborhood) might be able to help you with this, but I think the backup being physically in the correct subfolder is key for this to work properly.

Typically when one obtains a "new" iPhone (when yours was reset it was like a new phone at that point) iTunes or the Finder shows all the backups in that subfolder and let you choose one to restore from.

Old Toad wrote:

Give iBackup Viewer a try. The free version will let you peruse the contents of the backup and should do what you want. If you have encrypted backups you'll need to purchase the Pro version .

Old Toad -- that iBackup Viewer program looks interesting. Unfortunately, the problem this poster is having is that the backup he has on his Mac from February was made after his phone was reset. The personal content (photos, etc.) he wants to recover is in a backup from December of last year and he cannot locate that older iPhone backup file, it does not seem to be on his Mac anymore. If he could locate that backup file, he could try iBackup Viewer but he can't locate the backup file.

Missed that. I do remember a while back that there would be several backups shown in iTunes when managing backups. Now all we get it the last one