Q: How do I locate my iTune iPhone backups on a MacBook Pro?

Hello Cholly,

Thanks for checking out the Apple Support Communities. I understand how important it is to have your pictures and memories. I will be happy to provide you with the information about iOS backups on your MacBook Pro.

You can locate your backups through iTunes using this help article from Apple: Find and manage your iTunes backups. That's the easy part. Once you locate the backups, you will only be able to restore the iPhone, or another device such as a newly purchased device, with the data from that older backup. This will erase all the data on the device currently, and replace it with the data, music, pics from the backup. If this is the option you are looking to do, you can use this article to help: Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup. I will provide another article in case you have issue with the restore here: If your iTunes backup couldn‘t be completed or you can‘t restore from a backup.

If you do not wish to lose all the current data on the device, you will have to manually save that data to your computer first, then restore the backup to the iPhone, and then sync that other data back manually. The only things that will not restore exactly will be your text messages and pictures in your camera roll. Messages come from the cellular provider and will only be restored from a backup when you restore the entire iOS device, and pictures only show in the camera roll if you take the pictures from the internal camera, or also do a full restore. The pictures will still sync over, they will just be in another folder, not the camera roll. I provide this information only so there are no surprises and you can decide if this is the process you wish to use. This article may also provide more information for you: iTunes: About iOS backups.

If you wish to save all the current data from the iPhone, then restore the device from the older backup using iTunes, then manually sync the newer data back to the iPhone, then you will need to check these articles from Apple. First, to sync the data from the iPhone to the Mac using this: Sync media between your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and iTunes on your Mac or PC. Then, you use the article provided above, and restore your iPhone from the backup in iTunes. Once that is done, you will need the article just above this sentence again, and possibly this article: iTunes 12 for Mac: Sync iPod, iPhone, or iPad.

Thanks again and have a great rest of your day.