Trouble backing up iPhone to external hard drive.

[h_a_87]

Good evening,

I would really appreciate some help with backing up my iPhone please. I have a new phone ready and waiting but have not backed up my current phone in a long time, since there is not enough space on my laptop and I didn't know how to do it (well, still don't it seems!). Obviously I'd like to back up the current iPhone (a 7) and then can switch to my new phone. I don't really know anything about computers and phones and am struggling!

Firstly I am using a Macbook Air (1.3 GHz Intel Core i5) running OS X 10.9.5. I have an external hard drive plugged in and I have accessed at least four different sets of instructions on how to do this, but essentially I can't make a symbolic link appear in the old backup folder. I just don't know what I'm doing wrong! I copied the backup folder to my external hard drive, then renamed the original backup file as everything suggests. I have tried typing the lines of code suggested very carefully into Terminal but get the response "file exists". As far as I understand it, I am wanting a symbolic link to appear in the original backup area but it isn't there.

Any thoughts or advice much appreciated! Thank you.

 

[Minorite]

I would use iMazing instead of a symlink (built-in feature to change backup location), but not sure if it will work with Mavericks. Check with trial.

Btw, what's the file system on the external drive?

 

[NCnewbie]

Good evening,

I would really appreciate some help with backing up my iPhone please. I have a new phone ready and waiting but have not backed up my current phone in a long time, since there is not enough space on my laptop and I didn't know how to do it (well, still don't it seems!). Obviously I'd like to back up the current iPhone (a 7) and then can switch to my new phone. I don't really know anything about computers and phones and am struggling!

Firstly I am using a Macbook Air (1.3 GHz Intel Core i5) running OS X 10.9.5. I have an external hard drive plugged in and I have accessed at least four different sets of instructions on how to do this, but essentially I can't make a symbolic link appear in the old backup folder. I just don't know what I'm doing wrong! I copied the backup folder to my external hard drive, then renamed the original backup file as everything suggests. I have tried typing the lines of code suggested very carefully into Terminal but get the response "file exists". As far as I understand it, I am wanting a symbolic link to appear in the original backup area but it isn't there.

Any thoughts or advice much appreciated! Thank you.

I'm not sure if this will help, and it's been a while since I set mine up, but I have to back up my phone on an external HD because of lack of space and my issues trusting the cloud. This article helped me, so maybe it will of some use to you:
https://www.cultofmac.com/426217/how-to-back-up-your-iphone-or-ipad-to-an-external-drive/

I remember that it did take some trial and error before I figured it out, but I did. Don't give up - if I figured it out, you can too.