Find the Location of your iTunes Backup

💡iMazing 3
This guide is not yet complete or updated for iMazing 3. An update will be available soon.

When working with your iOS device backups, it's important to know where they are stored on your computer. iTunes stores backups in one location and iMazing stores them in a different location, and you can change the folder where iMazing stores backups if you wish.

In this article, we're going to tell you where these iPhone or iPad backups are stored, how to identify the backups for a specific device, and how to change where iMazing stores backups on your Mac or PC.

Here's how to Find the Location of your iTunes Backup:

1. Where does Finder/iTunes store Backups?
2. Where does iMazing store Backups?
3. Changing the iMazing backup location
4. Finding your iPhone or iPad's backup
5. Going further

Before you begin

Always make sure you are running the latest iMazing version, to do so select Check for Updates from the iMazing menu, or just download the latest available version for your computer below.

Download and install iMazing on your Mac or PC computer.

Instructions

1. Where does Finder/iTunes store Backups?

When Finder or iTunes backs up your iOS devices, it stores them in a location that isn't easily accessible. Finder does not let you change where its backups are stored.

💡 Note: Since macOS 10.15 Catalina, backups are now performed through the Finder instead of iTunes. We still refer to them as iTunes backups for consistency across platform.

• On a Mac, iOS backups are stored in this folder:

  [user name]/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
  

  This is in the hidden Library folder in the home folder; that's the folder with the house icon and your user name.

iTunes backup location on Windows

• On a Windows PC, iTunes stores its backups in this folder:

  \Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\
  

You can show a backup in the Windows Explorer from iTunes. Choose Edit > Preferences (on Windows), and click the Devices icon in the Preferences window.

If you right-click on a device, then choose Show in Windows Explorer, iTunes will open a window with that backup selected.

On macOS, since backups are now handled by Finder, the way is slightly different.

• In the Finder, select Go > Go to Folder.
• Type or copy and paste ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/ in the pathname window.

2. Where does iMazing store Backups?

By default, iMazing stores iOS backups in a different location.

iMazing backup location on the Mac

• On the Mac, iMazing's default backup folder is:

    [user name]/Library/Application Support/iMazing/Backup/
  

iMazing backup location on Windows

• On a Windows PC, iMazing stores its backups in:

    \Users\[user name]\AppData\Roaming\iMazing\Backup\
  

3. Changing the iMazing backup location

You can change where iMazing stores your iPhone and iPad backups. For example, you can move them to an external drive so they don’t take up space on your startup disk. See our guide on how to Back Up an iPhone or iPad to an External Drive, or Network Drive for more details.

💡 Tip: Backup locations can be managed from the iMazing Preferences > Backups section or for each device from device Settings > Backup Location section. Learn more about Managing Backup Locations.

4. Finding your iPhone or iPad's backup

While you name your iOS devices, and both iTunes and iMazing display these names, your backups aren't named the same way. They are named after the UDID (unique identifier) of your device. This obscure string of characters is hidden on your iOS device, but you can find it using iTunes, or iMazing.

On Windows, connect your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to your PC, then launch iTunes. Select the device in iTunes, then click Summary in the sidebar. In the section where you see the basic information about your device, you'll see Serial Number. Click that, and iTunes displays the UDID.

You can find this easily with iMazing, and you won't need to use iTunes at all. Connect your device to your computer, launch iMazing, then select the device from the homescreen. You can find The UDID in the information displayed.

If you'd like to learn more about this feature, our dedicated article is here.

5. Going further

iTunes backups are not human-readable, but with iMazing you can browse them freely, including their contents. This article on viewing backup contents is a good place to start if you're interested.

Starting in September 2018, newer iOS device models have different UDIDs than in the past. Previously, there were made up of 40 seemingly random characters, but now they contain 25 characters. So you may see these two different types of UDID in your backup folders depending on when your devices were manufactured.

Finally, if you're running macOS 10.14 or above, iMazing will need your permission to access iTunes backups. This article explains how to grant the necessary permissions to iMazing.You can also check our dedicated video about privacy changes in recent macOS versions.