Wednesday, 24 August 2011

How can I change where iTunes backs up my iPhone on a PC

How can I change where iTunes backs up my iPhone on a PC
iTunes currently backs up my iPhone to the default place on my C: drive. But my C: drive is now full, so the backup is too big to fit on it. I want to back up to my F: drive, because it has plenty of space. But how do I tell iTunes that’s where I want to save my iPhone backups?

You can use this tool to create a junction:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx

For example, let’s say you want your iPhone backup to be D:backup. You would do this:
1. Close iTunes
2. Move the folder c:documents and settingsuserapplication dataapple computermobile syncbackup to D:
3. Extract the junction.zip to the Desktop.
4. Open a command prompt and enter these commands:
cd Desktop
junction D:backup “C:Documents and SettingsusernameApplication DataApple ComputerMobile SyncBackup”

NOTE 1: Change “username” to match your current username, of course.
NOTE 2: I did not test the above! In general, junction points work OK, but only if programs don’t mess with the linked directory (like rename or remove it). For example, if iTunes does something like delete the …Mobile SyncBackup directory and then recreate it, it will no longer go to the D:backups folder.

Hope this helps you.