do backups delete previous backups?

Untrue. Even Apple, in its official documentation, describes the archival process as different in Windows.

#5. Archive or copy your backup: If you have a Mac, Control-click the backup that you just made, then choose Archive. If you use Windows,

find your backup, copy it, and save the copy to another location. If you decide to go back to the current version of iOS, you'll need this archived or copied backup.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203282

This has been true since iOS 10.3 Beta. Edit: While the Beta part is not relevant in this discussion, this is the only place that I’ve seen Apple directly describe the backup archival process for Mac and Windows.

When did this start happening? When did backups start getting deleted by DEFAULT?

Where can I change this "default"....there is no way to change it? You have to manually create

your own backups now? Crazy.

And the bigger question is WHY!! And even bigger than that is why did they make

the backups so hard to find. It used to be EASY to find a backup. I am sure Apple

has some good reason , but it sure isn't good for customers. Rename a back up manually

to save it? The backup name is already incoherent jumble of odd letters and numbers

I guess because I use encrypted back ups. I guess I can just name it with the date like it used to do automatically, but

why did they do all this? It worked well, now it seems broken.

I guess people were building up a huge backload of back-ups, so those people messed up

the nice system Apple used to have to save backups.

I guess you can tell...I thought I had a back up before I synced....now I don't have backup from

pre-sync, because when you sync the first thing it does is create a back up....and now find out

it erases each previous backup. So much complication , only to loose stuff...bye-bye all the playlists I used

to have on my ipod. Such disappointment.

The 'jumble of letters & numbers' for the backup name is actually the device UUID, it means you always get one backup per device, even if you erase the device & give it a new name.

If you are on Windows the archive feature is not in the iTunes preferences, so you can only archive by renaming the folder (or copy to another destination). As far as I know renaming the backup folder on Windows is legitimate. The only thing to avoid is renaming the files within the backup, those are hashed paths to the data in the iOS filesystem.

iOS backups have always behaved like this. I suspect it is due to the fact that SSD's are often the size limit on many Macs, a single backup can be many GB so users need to specifically generate one.

iTunes normally creates an archive backup prior to major upgrades if I recall correctly.

As for playlists on an iPod, they should all exist in iTunes on the source computer, playlists created on the device (either iOS or a classic iPod) will be copied back to iTunes with a sync. The backup should not relate to the playlists.

Backups are overwritten by default.

If you use iTunes on a Mac you can 'archive' a backup to preserve it (right click a list item in iTunes Preferences > Devices). On Windows iTunes you have to manually find the backup folder & rename it before it is overwritten.

With iCloud backup you get one backup & a new one will overwrite that.

iTunes and iCloud backups have always been incremental in nature - the existing backup file is simply overwritten to reflect only those changes since the last update. This is, and always has been, their normal backup behavour. It does NOT erase the previous backup - it simply amends it incrementally (a fairly standard method, btw, of maintaining a given backup file to reflect the current state of the backed up device). There is, in IT, a distinct difference between a backup, and an archive. A backup needs to be current with the contents of the device or system being backed up. If it is not current with the device contents, it is not really a backup, but an (older state) archive.

The ability to archive an iTunes backup has also always existed, to completely preserve a backup from a specific time point. Or you can always just copy the actual backup file to an archive folder. Or, you can use OS X Time Machine to restore a previous incarnation of the current incremental backup file. Time Machine does both include the features of an incremental backup and an archive, but that is because by design, it is intended to use some separate and dedicated hardware storage system for its database and files, while iTunes (and iCloud) are storing files in active storage which also is used for other data storage uses (so no one wants their laptop hard drive or iCloud space filling up with endless backup files).

P.S. DO NOT rename an encrypted iTunes backup file. Archive it from within iTunes if you wish, or copy it intact to some other location, but do not alter the name of an encrypted backup file.

HHmm.. if two people say I am wrong I am probably wrong, but how long have you been using iTunes?

I Am pretty sure i was able to have multiple backups of my ipod when I used windows XP And an iPod classic.

on the back up there is no way I have found to archive the back up through itunes, (at least in Windows 10)

you have to physically copy it.

I Changed the folder name of the backup to a date and description and iTunes still recognized it and allowed me to make a second back up at a different time. I have not tried to restore from the back up though.

"As for playlists on an iPod, they should all exist in iTunes on the source computer, playlists created on the device (either iOS or a classic iPod) will be copied back to iTunes with a sync. The backup should not relate to the playlists"

you are right they should , but they are not behaving like this for me. When I plug my iPod into iTunes, there are some playlists shown under " my device" in iTunes , but they are older ones. The newer playlists on my iPod we not there, so I thought "I will sync and that will make them appear" ... wrong, the newer playlists disappeared from the ipod and from iTunes. I have been trying to figure out why. I think I had my iPod set up for "manually manage " songs and playlists so that I should have tried dragging those new playlists instead of syncing. Syncing just put what was in iTunes on to my iPod and since I tried to sync a second time to "backup" (which is not really an archive backup! ) just simply would have the same "incremental " change of erased playlists! UggH.

iiTunes is the same, windows or Mac - to archive, open preferences and select devices, right-click or control-click on the backup you wish to archive and then select archive. You can have as many backups as you have devices of course - one for each uniquely named device.

I've used iTunes literally since it was first released, although solely on Apple computers. Backups of iOS devices have always been incremental, not archival. I have also been using iOS since it was first released, as well as OS X since the first public beta.

Thanks for note. Ok, I must be confused about the backups, wouldn't be the first time.

But this archive thing simply does not work For me. I right clicked on the backup in preferences and nothing, held control and r- clicked ...nothing.

i Saw a picture of what it is supposed to look like and it just does not work. Nothing happens with a right click.

Ddor wrote:

Thanks for note. Ok, I must be confused about the backups, wouldn't be the first time.

But this archive thing simply does not work For me. I right clicked on the backup in preferences and nothing, held control and r- clicked ...nothing

Forgive me for not reading this whole thread all the way through in detail. But in Windows, you cannot archive a backup by right clicking and selecting Archive from the contextual menu. That's a Mac only thing.

In order to archive a backup in Windows, IIRC, it would work like this. Create a current backup, then restore that backup right away to your device, that will "archive" that most recent backup for you. That will date and time stamp the backup that you just restored from essentially archiving the backup.

i Have multiple backups of my iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch in iTunes on my Mac. From title to time, I archive a recent one, then delete a couple of the older ones.

Ddor wrote:

When did this start happening?

9 years, 9 months ago, with the very first iPhone.