How to tell iTune to keep every backup?

Yes, there are a number of programs that can extract data from iPhone backups. Google (or Bing) "iphone backup extractor". If your a techie the backup is actually a MySql database.

Yes, but to do so you must selectively exclude what you don't want.

May I suggest you post your Time Machine questions here:

https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/mac_os_x_v10.7_lion

I've got a lot to learn from Pro's like you! I really appreciate it. Bottom line here, so that I don't lose any data:

1) iTunes backs up only the current data on the phone and it only keeps the latest backup made.

2) If I want to make sure I have all my data always backed up and available for restore to the phone, I need a method of copying the MobileSync folder on a regular basis to another location.

3) Time Machine can do this, but only as a part of a larger backup scheme of the entire hard disk.

4) To restore the iPhone from an older backup, you would need to manually (if only temporarily) replace the current MobileSync folder with the older one.

Am I good here? Any ideas of what to use that is free and easy just to set up a backup schedule to the MobileSync folder (or even the one SMS file I really care about) that would copy it to another folder on the same HD?

Ya got it. If you're on a Mac, Time Machine is included & does the job, no third-party software needed.

The one thing no one has been able to do yet that I can see is restore older SMS messages back to your phone from multiple sources. If you upgrade to a new iPhone and start using it and have a few hundred texts and then want to merge them with the older ones from another phone all onto the new phone, you can't do that.

Can be done, but now you're getting into an area that requires the knowledge to edit SQLite databases, without screwing things up 😎.

And if I tell it to exclude everything but the MobileSync folder, it will constantly back it up. The other person was saying that it, too, does incremental backups. So in this case, if I then want Time Machine to restore the MobileSync folder to my Desktop from three weeks ago, it figures out how to put all the incremental pieces together to construct what the folder looked like on that day? If so, brilliant!

macintosh1984 wrote:

So in this case, if I then want Time Machine to restore the MobileSync folder to my Desktop from three weeks ago, it figures out how to put all the incremental pieces together to construct what the folder looked like on that day? If so, brilliant!

Yep. It just replaces the folder.

You can exclude folders from Time Machine, so I guess you could exclude everything except the iPhone backup, but why would you not want to back up other valuable data on your computer? The whole point of Time Machine is to make backups so painless that there is no excuse for anyone not to have regular backups.

Correction: SQLite database.

This discussion about iTunes replacing prior backups with the current one is phone specific, right? If you have 3 iPhones, iTunes does keep each phone's backups separate. It's not going to replace each other's backup, right?

It keeps a separate backup for each phone and for each firmware version.

***SOLUTION***

I've been trying to find the easiest solution to making sure iTunes makes a full backup each time, so that you have archives of backups should the need arise to retrieve accidentally deleted data.

I had looked at backup programs, Time Machine and the like, and although each would work in its own way, I was looking for something super easy and super idiot-proof.

Here's what to do:

1) Using Automator, set up a new Workflow with only two steps: Get Selected Finder Items and Rename Finder Items. Point the Get Selected Finder Items to the "Backup" folder located in MobileSync (user->library->application support) and set the Rename Finder Option to append the Current Date.

2) Save the Workflow as an Application.

3) Create a crontab entry using CroniX. It's free and available online as a download. I didn't know a thing about crontabs, but it's really easy to set up. Basically, it's a one-line command written to a system file that tells OSX to run a command at a set interval. Using CroniX makes the process very easy. Just set the interval (in my case, it's set to run once a day) and enter for the command: "open [the path to the app you saved in Step 2].

4) Now, each day at the time you setup, the app will run and if it finds a Backup folder (which indicates it is a fresh and current iPhone Backup, it will rename that folder to the current date. When you next plug in your phone, a new backup will be made and you will still have the prior backup intact. As an extra bonus, the date naming scheme will be very helpful in knowing how current your backup is, since it will always have the last date it was a valid current backup.

The two drawbacks that I can see are the time it will take for each backup, since it is making a full backup every time, and the disk space it will take up for each backup. However, it does make up for itself in my view by the simplicity. Alternatively, I think this would work perfectly if all you were interested in keeping archives of were your address book or SMS messages, since you could then set this up to only rename those files instead of the entire folder. In that case, I imagine the backup time would be much shorter, since the large files such as pictures are not being backed up each time.

I'd love to hear your comments on this. I know it's not as elegant as Time Machine, so please don't compare the two!

Actually, I think it's a brilliant solution!

Thanks!