I want to delete old iPhone backups from my MacBook (latest Big Sur)... I no longer have the phone

aprsocprof wrote:

It's in the subject line. I transferred everything from my iPhone XS to the new iPhone 13 and discovered I have 60GB of backups from the old phone and, for all I know, previous ones. It would be great to free up 60GB from the 500GB hard drive.

I can't follow the usual directions because I can't plug the old phone and go through Finder to find old backups and delete them.

I have no idea if I can simply delete the 243 folders under Backup

You do not need the old phone to delete the backups on your Mac.

From the Finder>Go>Go to Folder copy & paste:

~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/

aprsocprof wrote:

Thanks! just to be absolutely clear, it's fine to delete the "00008020-000C64922289002E" folder that contains the 243 subfolders? Is there any reason not to jump up one step and just delete the "Backup" folder - I'm guessing it makes no difference.

If it were me I would just delete the entire folder

from Locate backups of your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support

1. Type or copy and paste this: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/