How to make backups of iPhone directly on external drive?

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How to make backups of iPhone directly on external drive?

Hi!

I am missing space on my Mac and want iPhone backups to be saved on external drive.

In Terminal I pasted this command: ln -s /Volumes/ExternalHarddiskName/iPhone\ backup ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/Backup/. I replaced ExternalHarddiskName with the name of my disk. I think it worked - there was no error message.

After that when I tried to do manual backup of iPhone I got a message that there is not enough space on Mac. Shouldn't backup be saved directly on external drive and not on Mac? Why do I get a message regarding Mac space availability?

Thank you!

Kamila

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jan 31, 2022 2:19 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Lawrence Finch

Community+ 2026

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231,684 points

Feb 2, 2022 11:27 AM in response to camajalo

You need a folder to hold all of your backups on the external drive, named “Backup” for convenience (it could be anything). It must contain at least one backup.

The symlink should be on your internal drive, should be named “Backup” and should link to the backup on the external drive. If iTunes is creating a folder called backup in MobileSync then your symbolic link is not named “Backup” because if it was iTunes would not be able to create a folder named backup.

And note that file and folder names are case sensitive, so "Backup" is not the same as "backup”.

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Answer 2

Jan 31, 2022 2:33 PM in response to camajalo

Did you remove the backup directory first from the internal drive? And did you copy the backup directory first to the backup drive.

Open Terminal, and enter cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/ and see if you see the symbolic link. Or do it with Finder.

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Answer 3

Jan 31, 2022 2:25 PM in response to Tesserax

Tesserax wrote:

AFAIK, Apple only provides iPhone backups to either iCloud or directly to the Mac's internal drive. I don't think that there is a valid command in Terminal that would permanently change that.

Actually, there is a way that works, but is not officially supported. You copy the default backup directory to an external drive, then replace what had been the backup directory with a symbolic link to the directory you just moved to the external drive.

That’s essentially what camajalo did, but there is probably an error somewhere in the command line instructions.

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Answer 4

Jan 31, 2022 5:30 PM in response to camajalo

The step you missed is to copy (actually move) the backup folder to the external drive. Because it couldn’t find a backup folder using the symlink it created a new one.

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Answer 5

Jan 31, 2022 3:00 PM in response to camajalo

Yes. The symbolic link replaces the backup directory. If it is set up an ls -l command will show an arrow pointing to the external location.

If you can’t do that command (there’s more advanced security in Big Sur and later) instead find the location with Finder, then double-click on the backup directory and see if it takes you to the external drive.

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Answer 6

camajalo Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 31, 2022 3:13 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

Thank you for explaining!

I managed to find it via finder and there is a folder with arrow that takes me to external drive, so I guess this part is correct. But I did not not delete previous backup files from there.

Also I can see that a new folder was created when I attempted to create a backup that was not successful. But this folder was created in previous, internal location and not on external drive.

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Answer 7

camajalo Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 2, 2022 9:32 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

Now I made sure Backup folder was moved to external drive (placed in newly created folder iPhone backup). Inside /Users/user/Library/Application Support/MobileSync I have only one folder called "Backup" and inside there is just symlink called "iPhone backup" (there is an arrow on it). I guess symlink is correct. But when I try to make a backup of iPhone new folder is created inside "Backup" folder on internal drive.

Any ideas what I am doing wrong? Maybe I created symlink in incorrect location? I was following this guide: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2021/10/01/how-to-backup-iphone-external-drive/

Thank you for all comments!

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Answer 8

Tesserax

Level 10

158,748 points

Jan 31, 2022 2:22 PM in response to camajalo

AFAIK, Apple only provides iPhone backups to either iCloud or directly to the Mac's internal drive. I don't think that there is a valid command in Terminal that would permanently change that.

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