How to Change iPhone Backup Location on Mac

Why Mac doesn’t offer a built-in tool to change the default iPhone backup location is anyone’s guess. Even after completely abandoning iTunes in macOS Catalina, it’s even more strange that changing iPhone backup location isn’t a standard feature yet. Fortunately, we figured out how to change iPhone backup location on Mac.

I’m going to talk about a nifty workaround that will let you change the default iPhone backup location to an external storage drive or another internal directory on your Mac. So fasten your seat belts and let’s get started.

Change iPhone Backup Location on Mac

When you launch macOS Catalina, it’s the Finder app, not iTunes, that backs up your iPhone to Mac via USB or Wi-Fi. Backups are stored in a hidden location of your user profile, specifically in a folder labeled Backup located in another folder called MobileSync.

To migrate the backups to another location, you need to use a workaround with symlinks (or symlinks). The symbolic link allows you to create an empty folder pointing to another location. The folder that would appear as a shortcut becomes a ‘wormhole’ where anything copied to it appears where it points. Sounds good, right?

This means we will “trick” the Finder into taking a backup of your iPhone to an external storage drive or a different internal directory, to the location of your choice. And the following steps will show you how.

In short, you’ll start by copying existing backups to the new location and then using Terminal to create the symbolic link that ‘mounts’ the default iPhone backup folder to the new location.

The whole process is quite lengthy and involves going through many steps, including granting the Terminal the necessary permissions to create symbolic links, so be very careful.

Note: Before we begin, consider creating an iCloud backup of your iPhone so you have an additional backup to fall back on in case something goes wrong.

Stage 1: Open Spotlight (press Cmd+Space), type the following path, then press Enter:

~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync

A Finder window opens the MobileSync folder, which contains the Backup folder that stores your iPhone (and iPad) backups.

Step 2: Right-click on the backup folder and then click on the “Copy Backup” option.

Stage 3: Open a new instance of the Finder, and then navigate to the location you intend to use as the new storage location for iPhone backups. It could be to an external drive or another directory on your Mac’s internal storage drive.

Once there, right-click on an empty space and then select Paste Element. I will choose the root directory of an external drive named “Files” as my preferred location.

Step 4: Wait for the backup folder to be completely copied to the new location. It may take some time, depending on the size of your previous backups.

Step 5: Go back to the previous Finder window that opened in the MobileSync directory in step 1. Next, right-click the Backup folder inside it and then select Rename.

Step 6: Rename the folder to Backup.old.

Note: You can delete this folder, but it’s best to keep it for now in case something goes wrong.

Step 7: Open the Apple menu and then choose System Preferences.

Step 8: Click on the box labeled Security & Privacy.

Step 9: Click ‘Click the lock to make changes’ in the lower left corner of the screen. Perform the necessary authentication to allow changes to your Mac’s privacy settings.

Step 10: Scroll down the left menu, select Full Disk Access, and then click on the ‘+’ shaped icon as shown below.

Step 11: Click Utilities, Terminal, then Open.

After adding Terminal to the Full Disk Access list, exit the Security & Privacy window.

Step 1/2: Open a new instance of the Finder, open the Go menu, and then click Utilities.

Step 13: Double click Terminal.

Step 14: After making the adjustments listed below, add the following command to Terminal:

ln -s /Volumes/Files/Backup/ ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/

• Replace the ‘/Volumes/Files/Backup/’ part of the above command with the actual path to the location where you copied the Backup folder earlier. For example, if the folder was copied to a folder named iPhone and that folder was located on a volume or drive named Vault, the folder path should appear as ‘/Volumes/Vault/iPhone/Backup/’.

Fly: If you are unsure of the exact folder path to the backup folder, you need to open it in Finder, go to View (on the menu bar) and then click Show Path Bar. You will then see the entire path to the bottom of the Finder window.

• If any name (volume, external drive, or folder) in the folder path consists of two or more words, you must use a single space followed by a slash between the words. For example, if the name of the external drive I copied the Backup folder to is My Files, the folder path should appear as ‘/Volumes/My\ Files/Backup/’.

When you execute the command, the symlink should be active and functional.

Step 15: Visit the MobileSync folder again from step 1 and you should see a shortcut folder labeled Backup in it. You can test if the symbolic link is working properly by double-clicking on this folder. Do this and you will be taken to the actual Backup folder in the new location.

Does everything look okay? Then you are ready to start backing up your iPhone to the new location.

Step 16: Connect your iPhone (or iPad) and then make a backup. It should seamlessly back up to the Backup folder in the new location.

After a successful backup is performed, you can safely delete the Backup.old folder (which you renamed earlier) in the MobileSync directory. It is quite useful if you want to free up space on your Mac.

If you have shifted the locations to an external drive, remember to mount it when you backup. Otherwise, the symlink will not work.

Note: In case you want to move iPhone backups to their old location later, simply remove the symlink you created in the above steps. Go to the MobileSync folder and delete the Backup shortcut folder. Next, copy the Backup folder (from where you copied it earlier) back to the MobileSync folder. Subsequent backups then happen once again in the original location.

Get a Backup

With the help of symbolic links, it is more than possible to back up your iPhone to another location on your Mac. Yes, the whole process seems tedious and complicated. But believe me, it is not. Just make sure to follow the steps above closely and you should have no problems switching locations. If you have any questions, leave a comment and let me know.

Next: Do you have a PC? Here is how to change iPhone backup location in Windows 10.