You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

poppoman123 Author

Level 1

0 points

I can't back up my iphone 4 in iTunes 9.2.... somebody help me please!!

I've been trying to back up my iphone (the data on it) but I just can't seem to do it...
I have an iphone 4 on iOS 4.0.1.
I use iTunes 9.2.1
My OS is OS X 10.6.4

I searched for tutorials on how to back up and they all said left click the iphone under the devices section in iTunes but when i do, there is not "backup" to click on....The options is gives me are:
Eject
New Playlist
Sync
Transfer Purchases
Restore from Backup
Reset Warnings

What should I do??

Macbook, Mac OS X (10.6.4), iPhone 4 iOS 4.0.1

Posted on Aug 1, 2010 6:16 AM

33 replies

Lanny

Level 6

13,207 points

Oct 10, 2010 12:18 PM in response to snurfer66

Thanks.

This fixed my situation.

Terminal entry:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes DeviceBackupsDisabled -bool false

Wish I had found it before re-doing a new iPhone manually without the benefit of a backup from the older phone.

Nov 26, 2010 9:53 PM in response to poppoman123

hi , I have the same problem,
when I write com.apple.iTunes DeviceBackupsDisabled -bool false in terminal,

I get this message : -bash: com.apple.iTunes: command not found

any help is appreciated .

alexf96

Level 1

0 points

Dec 11, 2010 5:04 AM in response to AmirhoCein

You need to write:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes DeviceBackupsDisabled -bool false

You forgot "defaults" at the beginning.

kikia500

Level 1

8 points

Dec 29, 2010 9:33 AM in response to poppoman123

i am running itunes 10.1 on windows 7 and having the same problem , and none of the step listed above are working.
please help !

Feb 7, 2011 10:23 AM in response to poppoman123

The Terminal Line works perfectly ..

Copy and paste this in terminal :
defaults write com.apple.iTunes DeviceBackupsDisabled -bool false

i81duce

Level 1

0 points

Feb 10, 2011 7:37 PM in response to poppoman123

Please, those of us with PC's (Vista, 7) still don't know the solution. As someone stated earlier, iTunes 10 only displays ALOT of A's when you attemt to delete the text that's in the iTunesPrefs.xml file. Please help. Already copied my music to another folder to use as a Backup. Just waiting on an possible solution.

scm51au

Level 1

0 points

Mar 22, 2011 2:15 AM in response to i81duce

For those using Windows 7, refer to the HELPFUL response from 2ni as this worked for me. The path that worked for me out of the 2 in 2ni's response was "C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes" as the 2nd path gave me what seem to be what some of you are getting e.g. 'AAAAAA..' but by following the above path will fix this for you.

Thank you again to 2ni for the response.

sitchey

Level 1

1 points

Mar 28, 2011 4:15 PM in response to Demsss3

For those having the same probs here is what i did (iPhone 4 with 4.2.1 and iTunes 10)

- Opened the iTunesPrefs.xml file
- located the user preference code
- Scrolled down and seen that there was "<key>DeviceBackupsDisabled</key>
<integer>1</integer>" code already in there.

- I tried to delete just the top line as suggested, but you need to remove the whole text inside the <data> to </data> tags ie all the "AAAAAA"s too

- When I saved the file and restarted itunes I was able to backup my iphone 4 by right clicking the device name and clicking backup!

Simples!

EBSkater

Level 2

496 points

Mar 29, 2011 12:29 AM in response to sitchey

Grief, don't use Notepad, as you can really scr3w things up, since you can't see everything.

At the very least, I'd recommend something that can read most of what you're editing:
http://portableapps.com/apps/development/notepadpp_portable

May 27, 2011 1:27 PM in response to 2ni

I can verify this works on itunes 10.2.2 & iphone 4(GSM) 4.3

I could not manually backup, and wasnt showing under preferences. Couldnt figure out why, I did however open in notepad and edit the file deleting only the above lines, saved, restarted itunes, plugged in phone, and bam there it was when I right clicked the device, finally let me backup. Thanks