Iphone backups don't show up in device preferences after moving to external hard drive

Finally, someone who is experiencing the exact same issue I am having. I have spent the ENTIRE WEEKEND looking for a solution to this, but have so far not found one. For over 1 year, I have successfully been backing up all iOS devices to a 128GB Transcend JetDrive 330 Lite expansion card (the one that discretely fits in the MacBook Pro SDHC slot). It has until about a week ago worked like a dream, and meant that c.20GB of iOS backups were no longer taking up valuable disk space on the MacBook SSD. But now, nothing. The backups are no longer being found, I am seeing the same 'corrupt...not compatible' warning message. The only things that have materially changed recently is the introduction of some High Sierra updates, and iTunes itself got updated recently also. And iOS of course. Between all of those events, the symbolic link that connected iTunes/High Sierra to the Transcend card is somehow no longer working. I have recreated it many times this weekend, I have done a ton of tests (Disk Utility, Techtool Pro etc) so see if there are underlying OS or hardware issues: nothing has been identified. I can only put it down to a bug that has inadvertently been introduced within the multiple recent software updates. I really hope Apple addresses this soon, there must be a lot of people out there affected by this.

Really hope a software patch is coming soon from Apple that will solve the bug.

There is no bug to resolve.

iTunes backups are expected by the iTunes backup processes to be in location A. Move them at your peril. Point to them in some 'command line' way at your risk.

That an Apple macOS or iTunes update broke some sort of kludge is not a bug. Apple has no documentation that was used in any of the advice given here.

In fact, users are warned by Apple to not do any of the things suggested here, for fear of data corruption.

The tutorial mentioned in the OP is from a 3rd party and was ~16 months out of date when used. That is a very long time in iTunes terms.

Alas, I did the same as you. My Macbook air is old and so it has very little storage on it already, and there's no way it could fit a full 64G iphone backup.

I followed the same tutorial as you to put it on my storage drive, and now it can't locate the backup. Hopefully someone figures out a way to do this - or Apple addresses this.

I understand Apple wants us to keep the backups on our desktops, but it's not reasonable when it's supposed to be a backup (thus something you would most likely keep with your other backed-up files.. aka your external storage device). I don't think many laptops can handle more than one full backup, and you'd have little room for anything else.

Take a look here:

Locate backups of your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support

Regards

Giulio

Please read carefully following two points (extracted from the article I already suggested in my previous post):

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.

  
  

  Thanks for your kind attention and best regards.

  Giulio

I'm having the exact same issue here! I had to move my iphone backups because I didn't have any more space on my Macbook. The first back up to my external hard drive seemed to work, so after copying an old itunes back up to my external hard drive, and creating a symlink, I deleted the one on my Macbook to make more storage space. Now it doesn't seem to work anymore, and I don't want to keep playing around in the Terminal App because I don't understand it. What can I do next? Do I take my Macbook, iPhone, and external hard drive to a Genius Bar now? gavsky and dangerousdashie what did you do?

How would you expect iTunes to know where you moved them to?

iTunes expects them to be where they are supposed to be.

Sadly I’m still waiting for a solution (whilst I gradually run out of disk space). Really hope a software patch is coming soon from Apple that will solve the bug.