How to change the device backup location of iTunes

Storage capacity of iOS devices keeps on increasing, and if you own multiple iOS devices and an MBP with limited storage like me, then you’ll definitely have issues with your backups. The best way to solve this is to transfer the location. For this tutorial, I will change the backup location to an external drive.

Before we proceed, make sure that your terminal have administrative privileges. If you don’t know how to do it, you can see this post.

Step 1: Open Terminal and delete the iTunes Backup folder in your machine.

rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/Backup

Step 2: Create a Backup folder in your target location, assuming that your external drive is already plugged in. You can either create it via Finder or via Terminal.

mkdir -p /Volumes/Seagate\ Bac/BACKUP/MobileSync/Backup

Step 3: Create a symlink (symbolic link) from the iTunes Backup folder in your machine to your new backup location.

ln -s /Volumes/Seagate\ Bac/BACKUP/MobileSync/Backup ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/Backup

If you open the local backup directory, you should see a folder with an arrow icon like this:

And, when you click it, you should be redirected to the target backup location.

Tip: Make sure that the target backup location is always plugged in everytime you’re going to backup your devices.