How to Make iTunes Backup to External Drive [Easy Guide]

As information technology becomes more and more interactive, more and more people are becoming aware of the importance of backing up files, as information can be compromised for several reasons. To protect your important files, you can use iTunes to back up your iPhone to a PC, but if you think that's still not foolproof enough, you can make iTunes backup to external drive. Please keep reading!

How to Make iTunes Backup to External Drive

iTunes does help you back up your iPhone to a PC using USB, but you should know what iTunes backup includes and how to save an iTunes backup to external drive. It will always be stored on the C drive. Your boot drive will be full and it will affect the performance of your computer.

Can iTunes backup to external hard drive? It is not easy to change the default path of your backup in iTunes, but there is still a way to change the iTunes backup location. If you are running iTunes on a Windows PC, it should follow Windows rules, so you can use the command “mklink /d” to change the default backup location.

 The default iTunes backup location may be:
👉 C:\Users\[Username]\Apple\MobileSync\Backup
👉 C:\Users\[PC Name]\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup
If you downloaded iTunes from the Microsoft Store, you can find your backup in the first path.

You need to be aware that changing the location of your iTunes backups may cause you to lose your previous backups because you can only link an empty folder as the new destination. Although you can cut your previous backups to another partition, they may not be available after you move them to the new destination.

Step-by-Step Guide on How to Change iTunes Backup Location:

Step 1. Connect your external hard drive to the computer > Delete or remove everything in the folder Backup.

Step 2. Create an empty folder called MobileSync on the external hard drive > Enter CMD in the Windows search bar and open CMD.exe.

Step 3. Enter mklink /J “C:\Users\[PC name]\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup” “E:\MobileSync” and press enter. The driver letter is up to you.

After you successfully change the path, you can start to back up the iPhone to an external drive with iTunes.

Step 1. Plug in your external hard drive. Connect the iPhone to the computer using USB and tap Trust on it.

Step 2. Click the phone-shape button in the upper-left corner of iTunes, and then click Summary in the sidebar > Click Back Up Now to start a manual backup.

☛ Tips: Select Encrypt iPhone backup if you want to encrypt the backup stored on your computer. Encrypted backups would be shown with the Lock icon, and a password is required to restore from that backup.

You should know that the backup files of iTunes couldn’t be previewed. Apple also recommends that users shouldn’t add, delete, or modify any file in the backup folder. If you think the process is complicated, you will know how to backup iPhone without iTunes in the next section.

Bonus Tip: How to Backup iPhone to External Drive Without iTunes

To simplify your task, professional backup software would be a good assistant to directly backup iPhone to external drive. With AOMEI FoneBackup, you can easily backup iPhone directly to external hard drive including photos, contacts, music, videos, and messages.

AOMEI FoneBackup allows you to easily backup and restore your iPhone on a simple pane. It gives you a flexible selection to meet different needs, and it is totally free with no advertising. You would have a good experience with it.

Preview Files: Whenever you back up or restore your phone, you can preview and select the files to get what you need.
External Drive: You can change the path easily to directly back up your iPhone to an external hard drive without the complicated code.
Widely Compatible: It supports most iPhone models from iPhone 4 to the latest iPhone 16 series and would be perfectly compatible with the latest iOS 18.

To back up the iPhone to an external HDD with AOMEI FoneBackup:

Step 1. Download AOMEI FoneBackup for free. Connect your external HDD to the computer > Connect your iPhone to computer with a USB cable and tap Trust on it.

Step 2. Click Phone Backup > Choose Selective Backup and click an icon to preview data. After selecting the needed data, click OK to return.

Step 3. Click Backup Storage Path to change the iPhone backup storage location to your external HDD and then click Start Backup.

☛ Tips:
● You could select your backup and click the eye icon or pin icon in Backup History to view or locate your backup on PC.
● To restore your iPhone from this backup, you need to click the horizontal lines and select Restore.
● This iPhone backup can be used on another computer.

Conclusion

You can save iTunes backup to external drive using Windows commands, but AOMEI FoneBackup is more convenient. It's completely free and clean. You can back up your photos, videos, music, contacts, and messages to an external hard disk and view them on any computer. Download AOMEI FoneBackup and enjoy its wonderful features!