efficient backup of iphone backups stored on mac (Big Sur)

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fiddleaway Author

Level 1

9 points

efficient backup of iphone backups stored on mac (Big Sur)

I'd like to keep the most recent copy of an iphone backup both on my mac

and on an external drive (and also prevent iphone backups of my mac to

include iphone backups it stores). Is there a way to do this and have

confidence that should the need arise, would be able to restore my

iphone from an external copy of the most recent backup I made on my mac.

Background:

I see that each iphone backup I do completely replaces the backup that's already held in my ~/Library/.../..../MobileSync folder.

I also see that Time Machine has preserved the previous iphone backups, but I am concerned that the complete replacement of an older iphone backup by a new one ultimately eliminates any storage efficiency gained by Time Machine's differential backup scheme ... it appears that Time Machine may effectively be keeping full clones of past iphone backups.

If that is true, I would rather configure TM to NOT backup my mobile backup folder. Rather, I would manually put a copy of the most recent iphone backup on an external SSD (thus giving me two copies of the recent iphone backup). The only reservation I have about that is the warnings given in Apple's "manage iphone backups" that say not to transfer backup copies to external drives (oh .... but if you do be sure to put 'em back on the mac they came from before using them to restore an iphone). Without further explanation, I don't know if changes on the original mac (OS update for example), would render an iphone backup on an external drive unusable.

One other thing: I don't use iCloud ... and would not plan to make that any part of my backup strategy.

Any advice on using an iphone copy backed up to an external SSD (or perhaps a network drive) would be greatly appreciated.

iMac 27″, macOS 11.6

Posted on Jan 24, 2022 2:33 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

MartinR

Level 6

19,651 points

Jan 25, 2022 6:00 AM in response to fiddleaway

You can always copy the iPhone backup file to an external drive, but you would have to do that manually each time you backup your iPhone ... plus add the date/time to the name of each resulting /Backup folder on your external drive so you can keep multiple backups and tell them apart. And, yes, you can copy any of them back to the same location (~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/) for restoring your iPhone. The gotcha is that the location (and even the structure) of the backup file may change when there is a macOS or Security update/upgrade. Apple itself warns about this in Locate Backups of your iPhone.

I'd suggest using iMazing. It has its own backup management functions and you can store multiple timestamped backups wherever you want to. (And it doesn't interfere with backups done via the Finder or iTunes.)

Some of iMazing's backup features:

'Time Machine' like snapshots of your devices.
Specify the location to store backups
Store dozens of backups without crowding your hard drive.
Go back in time and restore any specific version of your backup.
Browsable: your backed up data can be easily viewed.

I have been using it to overcome a problem I had with calendar sync via the Finder. Worked like a charm.

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Answer 2

MartinR

Level 6

19,651 points

Jan 26, 2022 5:37 AM in response to fiddleaway

It's not a matter of corruption of an existing backup file. It's that updates/upgrades may change the format, the inner structure, of the backup file.

You could go on forever without backing up your iPhone but it's more advisable to do it on a regular basis. If you are doing regular backups, then even if a macOS update/upgrade changes the layout of the backup file it wouldn't really matter.

iMazing creates its own backup files of your iPhone, independent of the system, and it is managed by & dependent on the iMazing app, not the system. It is not a copy of the Finder-based backup file. In fact you could backup your iPhone with both the Finder and iMazing and have two separate backup files giving you two independent means to restore your iPhone if necessary. I myself use iMazing to backup my iPhone to an external drive and it's working fine ... and for me it's a better way to create & retain multiple, time-stamped iPhone backups. It also has a lot of other very useful features.

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Answer 3

fiddleaway Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 25, 2022 8:03 PM in response to MartinR

I actually based my original comment on what I found in Locate Backups of your iPhone. I see warnings to copy entire /Backup folder .... but I don't see any warning about future OS updates corrupting an iPhone backup. If OS updates can corrupt backups, does that mean every time MacOS updates I should backup the iPhone again - or does Apple pay nice and 'fix' any existing backups so they'll work with the new OS?

Is an iMazing backup of my iphone immune from corruption by an OS update? It sounds like I would run the iMazing app on my Mac but specify the external storage as the target for the backup data. Is that correct? That would in theory make the backup/restore process invulnerable to OS changes, since the latter is simply a transport layer serving the backup/restore process conducted by iMazing .... am I on the right track?

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efficient backup of iphone backups stored on mac (Big Sur)

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