iPhone backup to external drive. Come on Apple

[macfly4]

iPhones are now pushing 512GB to 1TB of storage.
Anyone have an iMac or MacBook with that much extra internal storage space for backing UP that new phone? I feel this is a glaringly obvious feature Apple has never addressed. There needs to be a very simple GUI based way to select an external drive for storing iPhone back ups. When looking up possible options all I see is workarounds using the terminal app. Nobody wants to do that!
Come on Apple. This is an obvious omission that needs to be fixed. Am I missing something?
What do you guys do who have tons of stuff stored on your phones like music and videos/photos.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I think most folks are using cloud backup for their photos and camera videos. Music and movie/TV vids are associated with whatever service is used for streaming…and backed up there. Apps are no longer stored in backups.

My iPhone 8 is a 64GB model and is currently using about 38GB. The largest backup folder, done via iTunes (Mojave), that I have is about 10GB. The last one was 2GB.

This Apple Support page states: "Though you can copy the Backup folder, you should never move it to a different folder, external drive, or network drive."

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

Find a list of your iOS or iPadOS backups on your Mac, PC, and iOS or iPadOS device. Learn how to delete backups, copy them, and more.

support.apple.com

In my case, however, I'm using a symbolic link to relocate the folder to a different drive. Like I said…this is in Mojave so someone else would have to chime in with Big Sur or Monterey experience.

 

[macfly4]

Yeah. seems they are pushing iCloud for everything....So for those of us who aren't keen on backing up to a cloud and would rather have hard backups on a drive how does Apple accommodate us? isn't that kind of the point of having such a large amount of onboard storage for these phones?
Can anyone who DOES store a fair amount on their phones comment on your solution? I would imagine Apple could solve this easily since the general assumption is all desktop/laptop storage of size needs to be done to an external.

 

[NoBoMac]

In my case, however, I'm using a symbolic link to relocate the folder to a different drive. Like I said…this is in Mojave so someone else would have to chime in with Big Sur or Monterey experience.

Not doing this myself, but should work on any recent Mac OS. Same basic idea re: those folks (me included) who put their Photos library on an external drive vs clogging up internal SSD.

Like @BrianBaughn, my backups are small in size (basically same type of numbers: 64GB SE2020 with 33GB in use; apps, podcasts, and only a handful of images [albums synced from Mac]), so not an issue. But I do use iMazing these days for backups, as that does have the ability to put the backup folder on an external drive, should the need arise.

To add to what Brian said: photos are not backed if they are synced from a computer to the iPhone, so can shrink the size of a backup by pulling new photos off the phone and resynching back.

 

[Shirasaki]

Just like other says, Apple is moving away from customer local storage to centralised cloud storage where all of your data resides in the cloud forever, never leaving apple servers.

Symlink works well during iTunes era. You could test symlink out using the finder backup on Monterey, but expect apple to change nothing about it or provide any update to local backup feature.

 

[jz0309]

Yeah. seems they are pushing iCloud for everything....So for those of us who aren't keen on backing up to a cloud and would rather have hard backups on a drive how does Apple accommodate us? isn't that kind of the point of having such a large amount of onboard storage for these phones?
Can anyone who DOES store a fair amount on their phones comment on your solution? I would imagine Apple could solve this easily since the general assumption is all desktop/laptop storage of size needs to be done to an external.

well, you might not like my answer ...
I'm currently using ~145/256GB on my iPhone of which 97GB is photos/videos, messages ~31GB and music ~18GB (those are the numbers reported on the iPhone, I know they don't quite add up ...).
iPhone back to Mac has always been to internal drive, so I take that into consideration when upgrading my Macs, my iMac has a 1TB SSD with 607GB used, and all my media (photos, videos, music, movies) reside on external drives. I also copy my iPhone photos into my external photos drive.
When I got my MBA 6 most ago, I could have gotten away with 256GB but decided on 512 as I was considering doing my iPhone backups to it.
When I am going to replace my iMac, it will get internal SSD large enough to hold my iPhone backups and whatever else I decide to keep on internal SSD.
I am planning on getting the 13ProMax with 512GB, so my needs for adequate backup size are ever growing, I am planning for that as much as is feasible.

Yes, you have to anticipate your storing needs for years out and plan accordingly, and it will cost you $s.

 

[macfly4]

well, you might not like my answer ...
I'm currently using ~145/256GB on my iPhone of which 97GB is photos/videos, messages ~31GB and music ~18GB (those are the numbers reported on the iPhone, I know they don't quite add up ...).
iPhone back to Mac has always been to internal drive, so I take that into consideration when upgrading my Macs, my iMac has a 1TB SSD with 607GB used, and all my media (photos, videos, music, movies) reside on external drives. I also copy my iPhone photos into my external photos drive.
When I got my MBA 6 most ago, I could have gotten away with 256GB but decided on 512 as I was considering doing my iPhone backups to it.
When I am going to replace my iMac, it will get internal SSD large enough to hold my iPhone backups and whatever else I decide to keep on internal SSD.
I am planning on getting the 13ProMax with 512GB, so my needs for adequate backup size are ever growing, I am planning for that as much as is feasible.

Yes, you have to anticipate your storing needs for years out and plan accordingly, and it will cost you $s.

Right. But what about the phones that are 512 or 1tb? Backing up to the internal drive is a non starter if you actually have anything on it already.
Just think apple needs to give people an easy option for external back up, not just icloud

 

[macfly4]

Right. But what about the phones that are 512 or 1tb? Backing up to the internal drive is a non starter if you actually have anything on it already.
Just think apple needs to give people an easy option for external back up, not just icloud

 

[jz0309]

Right. But what about the phones that are 512 or 1tb? Backing up to the internal drive is a non starter if you actually have anything on it already.
Just think apple needs to give people an easy option for external back up, not just icloud

But it has been this way for the past 14+ years, so I have my doubts that we will see that option, though I agree that it would be nice.
Me, I’d prefer to see options what to backup to your Mac, eg photos, music and such, my music all originates on the Mac and gets downloaded to phone, so why back it up? That doesn’t apply to everyone though…
I do not see anything changing in this scenario tbh, Apple in recent years has been focusing on new features that for the “social media lifestyle” better, I’d wish they would improve what they have, but I guess I am old school, which is why I backup locally LOL

 

[yukari]

I use symlink to backup iPhone to my external HD.

I am still on Big Sur. I have not moved to Monterey as I have programs for work that are not yet compatible with Monterey.

 

[Phil77354]

. . . But what about the phones that are 512 or 1tb? . . .

Well, don't know why someone would have a 1TB iPhone and then have a laptop or desktop with ¼ of that capacity? That doesn't make sense to me.

If a user really has the need for such enormous storage on their iPhone then surely they will have a similarly large storage setup for their 'home' computer, whatever they use.

And as others have consistently responded to you already, the whole point of the Apple ecosystem is the ability you have to access everything on whatever device you are using. That only works if you are using iCloud, basically.

But if you also want to do a hard backup of your phone to your base computer, then get one with a large enough internal drive or have an external drive attached that you can backup to. I don't see the big deal here.

 

[macfly4]

Are you able to buy a macbook or imac with larger than a 2 TB internal drive? Not so much on average.
Storing itunes library on an external drive interferes with apple music syncing; same with photos.
I can, and do, use iMazing for backups. But those are pure backups. They dont allow the frequent sync abilities. I am just surprised apple hasnt created an easy way to do this in 14 years.

 

[Phil77354]

. . . Storing itunes library on an external drive interferes with apple music syncing . . .

Huh? First I have heard of this. I keep my iTunes library on an external drive and have done so for quite a few years. It's considerably larger than what I have on my iMac and it wouldn't even occur to me that I should have sufficient space on my internal drive to hold all of my music.

I'm interested in hearing why you say this. I have not experienced any issues myself.

 

[cynics]

Depending on your iCloud usage settings the PC/Mac backup is no where near the size of the storage used on the iOS device. My iPad is using 34gb of storage, the backup is 9gb on my iMac. Its also touch bit silly to be concerned with privacy and security from an iCloud backup when your phone is communicating with Apple 24/7 and the vast majority of the data in the backup passed through Apple servers anyway.

Anyway, there is a lot that can go wrong backing up to an external storage device. The backup data is heavily processed prior and during the backup and the restore process, one error and everything fails if the backup is altered everything fails.

I've had mixed results with symbolic links and 3rd party software alike. Usually I would think the backup is fine but when I goto restore there would be issues. I just upgraded the HDD to a larger SSD in my iMac, then I found iCloud was a much easier process to use.

On the surface you'd think, "oh just copy the files off its internal storage and youre done!" but that would never work. This backup needs to be secure and cohesive.

First thing to know is that the iOS device you are backing up is what is actually performing the backup. The host software can't access the data while its on the iOS device. The iOS device will determine what will and won't be backed up, regardless of software used.

Sensitive data like health and keychain data require the the iOS device to have an encrypted backup turned on to transfer. If you don't encrypt that data then it won't be backed up. Some data just won't backup at all like FaceID, TouchID and ApplePay. Data that is in the Cloud (messages, photos, contacts etc) also won't be backed up. Its not really possible but if it did the backup would break since now you'd have a database that doesn't reflect reality.

Also keep in mind its a live device so things are changing as its backing up, to maintain cohesion between the iOS devices data and the back up its needs to be monitored. Data is compiled on the device prior to transfer which is why its much slower if the iOS device doesn't have much storage space. 3rd party backup software will often tell you to put the iPhone in AirPlane mode to minimize the need to constantly revise the backup.

For security the UID and AppleID plus your encryption password are rolled into the backup so you are the only one that can use them. That encryption password is only one part of the code to decrypt the backup so even if its loaded on another device your data is still safe.

There is so much more involved too. Like 'Trusted' device verification on the host device and iOS device. 2FA if you're restoring a new device or accessing iCloud. Checking for iOS version mismatch. How the data is flattened making it unintelligible without software to reconstruct the data.

During the restore process things are just as complex. The iOS device is just as selective about what it is and isn't restoring, especially so if you are restoring an iPhone from an iPad backup for example.

Point is, while plenty of people get away with using symlink or 3rd party software to store externally it adds a lot of variables outside Apples control that can cause a backup to fail or even worse just not work. The user only finds out when they need it to work the most.