There are various reasons for backing up an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, such as having a copy of all your data stored on the iOS device so it can be transferred to a new iOS device if needed, for example. The problems begin if you have an iOS device with a high-capacity storage that you want backed up onto your Mac with limited disk space. Every backup occupies precious storage space on your machine, which all adds up in time until you wake up with a “Your startup disk is almost full” notification.
That's something every Mac user would like to avoid seeing.
Up to40%cash back Below are the steps that you can follow to delete your iTunes library data on a MacBook. Step 1: Close iTunes on you Mac and click the Finder icon - the one with a blue face on the Dock. Step 2: Once you are in, select “Go” from the menu that appears.
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Jan 17, 2020 The advantage of cloning is that it makes an exact copy of your Mac’s hard drive at the bit level. If anything happens to your Mac, you can boot directly from the backup clone and carry on working without having first to replace your hard drive and restore your data. As a best practice, you should keep both a file backup and a clone of your Mac.
That, however, doesn't mean it is only the most recent iOS device backups that are hogging all the storage. The older versions of these backups are dispensable, so if you are in need of disk space then removing these is a good start towards cleaning your Mac. In this article we will show you where you can locate your backups and how you can delete them or move them to an external hard drive.
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Locate iOS Backups on Mac
It doesn't matter which version of macOS you are using, you'll find the backup files in the following location:
~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
The (~) symbol stands for the user's home directory. But don't expect to see the MobileSync and Backup folders if you haven't backed up your iPhone to that Mac.
What you'll notice is that the file names in this folder are typically hexadecimal and random. Don't edit these files, because it would create an improper, unreliable backup and cause other problems with your iPhone.
Another way to locate your iOS device backups is by launching iTunes and then selecting “Preferences” and then “Devices”. There you'll find which devices were backed up and when.
To locate it on your computer, Control-click on the backup you want to check, then choose “Show in Finder”.
Delete iOS Backups From Your Mac
After locating the backup files, you can simply duplicate or remove them. If you need copies, you can copy the entire folder (not parts of it) to a network storage location or external hard drive. Time Machine automatically creates a copy of the Backup folder, unless you specifically instruct it not to do so.
To remove any of the backups, select the folder, and hit Command-Delete to move it to trash followed by the Empty Trash command (right-click on the Trash icon and click “Empty Trash”).
If you are locating the backup through iTunes, there is an option to choose “Delete Backup” right from the iTunes > Devices tab: then just select the backup you want to remove. If you have several devices or backups, just hover the mouse pointer over the backup and additional details such as iOS device model name, software version, etc. will appear.
iCloud Backups
But those using iCloud Backup won't find any of the aforementioned folders on iCloud.com, so here is how to locate these backups on your iOS device or Mac.
On any iOS device running iOS 10.3 or later, go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > iCloud Storage > Manage Storage.
Those with iOS 10.2 or earlier will need to go to Settings > iCloud > Storage > Manage Storage.
With iCloud, you have the option to set which iOS apps to back up, since many apps are automatically backed up after you install them. To control this and reduce backup volume, do the following:
iOS 10.3 or Later
Go to Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud > iCloud Storage > Manage Storage.
Select the name of the iOS device linked to your account.
Under “Choose Data to Back Up”, turn off the apps you don't want to back up.
Select “Turn Off & Delete”.
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iOS 10.2 or Earlier
Go to Settings > iCloud > Storage > Manage Storage.
Select the name of the iOS device.
You'll find the apps under “Backup Options”.
Select the apps you don't want to back up and hit “Turn Off & Delete”.
You can also delete backups and turn off iCloud Backup for your iOS device: follow steps (1) and (2), then select “Delete Backup” then “Turn Off & Delete” under iOS 10.3 or later.
Deleting iCloud backups on a Mac is also simple, but a bit hidden:
Launch System Preferences and select “iCloud”.
Click “Manage” and select “Backups”.
Select one of the device backups, and hit “Delete”. To remove all backups and turn off future iCloud backups for that specific device, choose “Delete“ when a prompt appears to confirm the action.
When you delete a backup, it also turns off the backup function of your iOS device.
Removing Old iOS Backups… the Easy Way
If you don't want to go through all the above, perhaps because of a lack of time or you just aren't confident in what you might be doing, then there are third-party apps such as CleanMyMac that make the job easier. It is a paid app, but it is well worth the price considering that it offers the convenience of stress-free cleaning. The iTunes Junk option cleans your unused iOS data from your Mac, such as old software updates and device backups, while detecting and removing broken downloads.
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Apple's built-in backup program for the Mac, Time Machine, makes it incredibly easy to back up all of your important data so you can restore your computer if something should happen. You can even recover deleted files if you accidentally lose them.
On Apple laptops, like the MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro, Time Machine includes the added feature of creating local snapshots so that, if you disconnect your MacBook from its external hard drive, you'll still have backups stored on your internal hard drive so you can recover data if you need to.
Local snapshots are invaluable for certain situations when you're out and about and need to recover data but don't have your backup hard drive. They also, eventually, start taking up noticeable space on your hard drive.
Why do I have 100 GB of backups on my hard drive?
You need an external hard drive in order to set up and use Time Machine because that's where your backups are stored. So why do you have a large number of backups taking up space on your MacBook's internal hard drive? Because of local snapshots.
As soon as you set up Time Machine on your Mac laptop, local snapshots are created automatically. Time Machine makes one daily snapshot every 24 hours when you start up your MacBook and also stores weekly snapshots. It keeps those weekly snapshots on your internal hard drive until you start to get low on storage. So, if you've been backing up your Mac for years with Time Machine, you could potentially have 100 GB of backups stored in your internal hard drive, as long as you have space for them.
How do I get rid of all these backups?
First, let me preface this by saying that you shouldn't worry about those backups and all the space they are taking up. If everything is working properly, Time Machine will automatically delete the oldest snapshot backups as soon as your internal hard drive has less than 20% of storage space left. If you then, say, download some large program and your internal hard drive plummets to below 10% (or less than 5GB of internal storage), Time Machine will delete all local snapshots except the most recent. The program will then continue to replace the old snapshot with a new one until you free up space on your Mac's internal storage, at which point it will go back to saving weekly snapshots as long as space permits.
That being said, everything doesn't always work properly and you may find yourself out of storage space on your internal hard drive, and those snapshot backups just won't go away. If you really need to delete those snapshots (which I don't recommend unless you desperately need that space), there is a way to purge local snapshots from your internal hard drive. You can use a Terminal command that will disable Time Machine's local snapshot feature, which will delete all of the local snapshots on your internal hard drive. It will also stop Time Machine from creating new snapshots.
To disable local snapshots in Time Machine and remove them from your internal storage:
Open Time Machine Preferences from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar on your Mac.
Uncheck Back Up Automatically.
Wait a few minutes for the local snapshots to delete.
Check Back Up Automatically again.
Source: iMore
Any questions?
Before you decide to purge your local snapshots, be sure you really need to do this. Time Machine should work automatically to remove older backups as you need the storage space on your internal hard drive. If you delete old backups, you can never retrieve data from them if something were to go wrong while you aren't connected to your backup hard drive. If you have any questions about local snapshots, drop them in the comments, and I'll help you out.
Updated March 2020: Adjusted steps for macOS Catalina.
Backing up: The ultimate guide
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