Catalina: backup iOS devices programatically

Before Catalina, I used to be able to use a simple AppleScript to open iTunes and select the menubar to back up connected iPhone/iPad; In Catalina, this function is moved to Finder and so far I haven't been able to find out how to click in the Finder's sidebar > location > iPhone. Has anyone had any luck with that?

Solution 1:

Apple Configurator 2¹ has a command line utility cfgutil, which can be installed from the menubar in Apple Configurator
.

With cfgutil installed, you can run the command: cfgutil backup

¹_{Currently requires macOS version 10.14.6 or later.}

Solution 2:

Also, for when one does not wish to put the ios device in supervised mode, this appplescript works for me (set [your_ios_device_name] accordingly)

tell application "System Events" to tell application process "Finder"
    set frontmost to true
    tell front menu bar to tell menu "File" to tell menu item "New Tab"
        perform action "AXPress"
    end tell
    set uis to (first UI element of row of (outline 1 of scroll area 1 of splitter group 1 of front window) as list)
    repeat with iter in uis
        if name of iter is "[your_ios_device_name]" then
            set ux to iter
            exit repeat
        end if
    end repeat
    tell ux
        perform action "AXOpen"
    end tell
    repeat until exists (button "Back Up Now" of scroll area 1 of group 1 of group 1 of splitter group 1 of splitter group 1 of front window)
        delay 0.3
    end repeat
    set btn to (button "Back Up Now" of scroll area 1 of group 1 of group 1 of splitter group 1 of splitter group 1 of front window)
    repeat until enabled of btn
        delay 0.3
    end repeat
    click btn
end tell