iPhone Backup to External Hard Drive

Hardware
1

Ok MPU Fam,

My wife is unable to backup her iPhone because her computer is… full of stuff. She needs to do a deep and thorough clean of her system, but. That’s a different discussion.

So. With that in mind. I know it’s possible to designate an external hard drive for your Music folder, etc, is it also possible to do that with your iOS backups if you backup to a computer so that when you back up, the files are stored on your external hard drive by default?

I’ve found a few things online but not quite what I’m looking for.

Thanks!

Khalil

2

No, and kinda.

I have, in the distant past, backed up my iPhone to my internal drive, then moved the backup to an external drive. To do a restore you would have to copy the file back to its original location.

iMazing will let you backup to an external drive, and also export data. I regularly use it export my Messages as PDFs. I normally restore from iCloud so I’ve only used it once a few years ago to restore my phone.

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3

I see two options that are feasible:

  1. iCloud Backup

  2. @WayneG’s excellent suggestion: iMazing (if set up correctly, it works flawlessly - Automatically Backup an iPhone or iPad via Wi-Fi - the backup location can be wherever you want)

I have decided not to bother with backing up iDevices. I am a happy iCloud Backup customer for all iPhones and iPads in my family. It does its thing in the background and does not get in the way with “family issues”. :slight_smile:

I have an iMazing license, but I do not really use it for regular backups.

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