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Can I cut/paste my backups to an external hdd and then back to my mac?

Ok, here's my issue and I'm sure I'm not the only one.


I have an iPhone6 and my wife has one as well, and we both have iPads.


I have to backup all of these somewhere, and my current device is a Macbook Pro with 250gb SSD.

As you understand, backing up so many things in so little space it almost renders my Macbook useless.


I have read some advice about using sudo commands to make iTunes store the backups in an external hdd.

However, I am not an experienced mac user, and I do not trust myself doing something like that.


What came to my mind, and that's what I want your opinion upon, is the following.


Something that I used to do when I was using a windows pc to keep many different backups, rename them etc.


As far as I understand, when I plug in my iPhone to my Mac, iTunes recognize the device and the last backup of that device.

Then, by pressing "Backup to my pc etc" it only updates that backup and rewrites on it.


My questions:

I backup my iPhone then quit iTunes.

I remove (cut) the backup folder (the one with the huge weird name from the directory library/application support/mobile sync/backup/0604f04blabhblahblah) and paste it on an external hdd where I have tons of space.


When I want to backup my iPhone again, instead of creating a whole new backup that would take a lot of time, if I take the backup folder that I had stored to that external hdd and paste it back to its original place (the directory I mentioned above), will iTunes recognize it and update and rewrite on that backup?

And then again move it back and forth from my mac to my external hdd.


And something even more important.

In case something happens to my iPhone (it falls from the 10nth floor) and I buy a new one, will I be able to "restore from backup" using the same method I mentioned before? Will iTunes recognize the folder?


Sorry for the long text and any mistakes but english is not my mother tongue and I wanted to make sure I would be clear about my questions.


My current backups use more than half of my 250gb internal SSD and along with some apps and other stuff I cannot get rid off I am left with only 50gigs of space which is terrible.


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1), 15", late 2013, 8gb memory, 250 ssd

Posted on Apr 21, 2015 12:11 AM

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Can I cut/paste my backups to an external hdd and then back to my mac?

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