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All I want to do is change the location where the Apple Computer folder is kept. It has maxed out my C drive and can no longer back up.
iPhone 7 Plus, iOS 10.2, back up to PC
You nailed it tt2,
I copied the back ups, deleted them from the folder of origin and then performed a new backup. The new back up was placed in the original folder, but with only one backup stored there is plenty of space remaining in the drive. It's a few extra steps to be sure, but doable. Thank you for your help! Happy New Year.
C.
You're welcome. Happy New Year. 🙂
tt2
Locate backups of your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touchLocate iOS backups stored on your Mac or PC
To avoid ruining any of your backup files, here's what you should know:
- Your computer saves backups made in iTunes to the Backup folder in your Users folder. The location of the Backup folder varies by operating system. Though you can copy the Backup folder, you should never move it to a different folder, external drive, or network drive.
- Don't edit, relocate, rename, or extract content from your backup files, because these actions might ruin the files. For example, to restore from a relocated backup file, you need to move it back or the file won't work. Backups serve as a safe copy of your entire device. So while you might be able to view or access a backup file's contents, the contents usually aren't stored in a format that you can read.
While Apple don't support it, the process for relocating the backup folder, assuming you cannot reduce the size by eliminating older unwanted backups, is given at Relocate ios device backups. Note that I have tested and use this method for the backup folder only. I would not recommend moving other parts of the Apple Computer folder. iTunes itself is known to break symbolic links within the media folder when writing out new data so it is possible that different subsystems make use of different file management routines.
tt2
Turingtest2,
Thanks for your reply. I have found similar procedures online, but your comment about eliminating older back ups got me curious. So I checked and in the Mobile Sync > Backup folder there are 2 folders each about 25G. Are they each a complete back up? Deleting the older one would satisfy my needs for now.
Carlos
Jameson.h,
Thanks for your reply. It would be a great help if at the onset, when we are setting up our iTunes, we could choose the drive location.
Thanks.
What does iTunes show under Edit > Preferences > Devices?
If your device is functioning properly right now you could delete both and let iTunes create a new rolling backup. Or you could switch to backing up to iCloud.
tt2
tt2,
It shows only one backup dated 11/12/16 - which is curious. My current device is newer than that and was backed up since then. In the Mobile Sync > Backup folder the more recent one shown is dated 12/19, the other one is dated 11/12.
Thank you.
C.
The 12/19 backup may not have completed successfully due to lack of space. iTunes could be ignoring the invalid folder. You could move both backup folders to another drive then see if iTunes will make a new backup of the device and list it properly.
tt2
The Apple back up folder in my PC is huge and I need to move it to another drive.
