How to change the location where iTunes stores backups of iPhones?

For Mac OS X, I had to use this guide: http://osxdaily.com/2011/03/05/how-to-move-the-iphoneipad-itunes-backup-folder-to-an-external-hard-drive/ and create a symbolic link to move the Backup folder, but it worked great.

The main thing is to move the Backup folder to an external drive/partition that has more space and then create a symbolic link like so:

ln -s /Volumes/YourExternalDrive/Backup/ ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup

Then execute a Backup by syncing via iTunes to try it out.

The iPhone backup is stored to he %APPDATA%\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup, where the %APPDATA% is typically in the C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming.

Even on Windows, you can create a symbolic link to redirect the Backup folder elsewhere.

• Close iTunes.
• Create a folder on another drive (e.g. D:\apple_backup) and move the contents of the above folder there.
• Remove the (now empty) Backup folder.

• Create a Backup symbolic link pointing to the new location:

  mklink /D "%APPDATA%\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup" "D:\apple_backup"
  

Actually, while I was doing this, I have moved whole Apple Computer folder as there are more large files other than device backups. Note that for that you need to kill some background Apple processes that use these folders (like SyncServer.exe, etc.)

For more details refer to:
https://www.howtogeek.com/164275/how-to-change-the-backup-location-of-itunes-or-any-windows-app/

The actual backup iTunes makes stores it in this folder if you on computer

Mac OS: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup
Windows XP: %AppData%\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup
Windows Vista: %AppData%\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup
Windows 7: %AppData%\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup

There is a GUID directory under it, you may have two since you chose new iPhone, or it might have overwritten the existing one, take a look there. If you have two then maybe the other one is your old one. Youd need to go into your iPhone and delete the iTunes_control directory and reconnect it to iTunes and see if it lets you pick that backup.

If you want to transfer iphone to computer, just follow these tutorials:
For PC: How to transfer or backup iPhone contents to Windows
For Mac: How to transfer contents from iPhone to Mac OS

Taylor B.

iTunes does not have a mechanism to store it's data (your backups) outside the home folder for your user.

This is more an operating system issue than an itunes issue. On mac there are lots of options to set up a user folder elsewhere or use aliases and sym links to redirect certain folders to a different location. Most of these links don't work across volumes on a mac. Sorry to play ping pong with this question but it might get a better audience in super user as the best place to learn how to have the windows os fake a program to store files in an alternate location.

You might also look in the registry to see if iTunes has a variable for this Location that you could try to change.

The good news is that apple documents the locations of iTunes files as well as mobile backup files so you can plan and play around to see what works for you. You might just have to clean out old backups to make enough space. My backup folder for a 32g iPad and four phones (one 8, one 16 and two 32) only takes up 8 Gb on disk.