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.

changing location of Itunes backups

created a link from the itunes default backup folder >"Q:\Apple Backups


I used


mklink /J "C:\Users\keith\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup" "Q:\Apple Backups"


but as Apple seems to use 2 locations for its backups i also created



mklink /J "C:\Users\keith\Apple\MobileSync\Backup" "Q:\Apple Backups"


I got the message "Junction created" both times


BUT Itunes is still saving the backup file to BOTH of default folder PLUS my new backup location


Any thoughts please ?


I want to STOP backups to my C drive as don't have much room available


Many thanks

Windows, Windows 6

Posted on Dec 10, 2021 11:50 AM

Reply
10 replies

Dec 11, 2021 4:48 PM in response to Red.dwarf4ever

Hi Red.dwarf4ever,


Thank you for participating in the Apple Support Communities. We understand you're trying to change the location of iTunes backups, and we'd like to assist. There isn't a supported way to do this within iTunes. You could always move the backup to a different location after you create it. This article explains how to locate your backups if needed:


Locate backups of your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch


Take care.

Dec 12, 2021 2:44 AM in response to Red.dwarf4ever

iTunes doesn't have a mechanism to store the backup data at a different path. The aim of the junction is to redirect the file read and write operations to a different drive. iTunes works as normal, referencing everything on the C: drive, but the data actually lives on the alternate drive. It appears to be in both places, but only consumes space in one of them. Because iTunes isn't aware of the redirection it still checks the system drive for free space before backing up, so if it thinks it is going to need say 30Gb for a backup, then you must have that and more available on the C: drive. After the backup the space used on the C: will be unchanged, while your other drive will have its free space reduced.


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


tt2

Dec 12, 2021 2:55 AM in response to turingtest2

Wow, so although it looks as though it’s saved on the system drive “backup” folder you’re saying it’s not actually there ? It only exists in the redirected location. If that’s true, it’s confusing. Also a tunes has two default locations one in apple computers ….. one in apple…..it shows in both, no idea why iTunes has two default locations

Dec 12, 2021 5:26 AM in response to Red.dwarf4ever

Exactly, the data appears in two (or more) locations, but only exists once. There are two versions of iTunes, one a direct download from apple.com, the other delivered through the Microsoft Store. They use two different paths for app data. You've clearly had each version at some point, but only one of them will be used by whatever version you currently have installed.


tt2

changing location of Itunes backups

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.