Iphone PC backups

mh52 wrote:

OK I did that - but the folder still contains about 22GB of data. So I explored as you suggested in your supplementary answer and there is a folder I didn't create at this location : ThisPC>Windows (C:)>Users>[username]>Apple>MobileSync>Backup. That has one hidden file, with a very long file name, which when I show it has many individual sub folders and is 27.6GB in size.

That series of folders/subfolders was created by Apple when iTunes got installed. That is the proper location for their backup files and Apple created everything under it.

Having deleted all visible backups in iTunes the device list is now empty. So, the question is how can I also empty this one remaining folder, if I can't do it from iTunes?

The reason I suggested not deleting directly from File Explorer is that I did not want to corrupt your iTunes installation. Since you have already removed the visible backups in iTunes I would delete the folder you mentioned above. It will go to your recycle bin anyway so it can be restored just in case (unlikely). Don't delete anything else. Reboot the computer after you delete it and recheck.

Do you have actual music or other media in iTunes now? If not I would remove iTunes from your computer using Settings > Apps > Installed Apps > selecting iTunes and Uninstall. Reboot the computer and then reinstall iTunes so you get a clean install. If you do have music/media files I can walk you through the process of saving the iTunes library prior to removing iTunes. And BTW, just to test I backed up my old iPhone 7 to iTunes on my W10 computer and it created one file/subfolder (on the location above) with 136 MBs, 1,898 files, and 256 folders. Deleting it again took seconds as all I had to do is delete the one file/subfolder under that path. And the reason deleting backups is fast is that in contrast to what you were previously told nothing gets deleted from your PC when you delete a file, all that happens is that that file/folder is removed from the list of valid/active files and the hard disk location is made available for new data. That is why recovery programs are able to recover deleted data until new data get written into that location and why the FBI/NSA required safe deleting, they write over and over on that location to place new data where the old data was thus actually wiping out the old 1s and 0s.... so deleting should be very fast.

Thanks for the continuing help.

My pleasure, it is nice to help someone that comes back and acknowledges our replies.... 😀

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Please re-post with detail so that someone else can help.

mh52 wrote:

my family iphones are backing up to my laptop and on icloud, how do I stop local backups and free disc space on my laptop? I donlt have itunes installed, the folder appears empty but reports 93GB of used space. Icloud back ups on their own will be fine? I need that space back on my laptop.

I don’t understand. If you don’t have iTunes installed on your PC, you cannot be backing up locally. If you were backing up to the PC using a third party app, just stop backing up.

I suspect that there is some important information that you have left out so post back with more details please.

Thanks for the more descriptive details.

If you are using iCloud for backups and you are OK with that, deleting backups will certainly recover some space on the laptop. The back up data would be historic as you put it. I don’t know how big each one is. 82GB of storage would be 4 fairly large backups. However, my daughter’s iPhone has a backup size of about 22GB IIRC.

I’m not a PC guy. I’ve only owned Macs. I’m not sure how to find out the size of the backups on a PC. I’m also not sure why the users root/Apple appears to be empty.

I am going to try to get some additional help from other higher level users to make sure I am leading you down the right path.

In iTunes go to Preferences and either the Devices or Advanced panel (I’ve forgotten which). You should see the backups. You can click on them one at a time and then click Delete, or right click on each and choose Delete. Then click OK, and WAIT. Each backup is thousands, or tens of thousands of files, and they must be individually deleted.

I have a MacBook Pro, a W10 PC and a W11 PC. I am equally proficient with Macs and PCs. Macs use Finder (the File Explorer equivalent) to do backups of iDevices. PCs use iTunes. My W10 PC has the latest iTunes installed although I seldom use it anymore. I did not install iTunes in in W11 PC but it is the same. I used to do backups into the W10 PC but I have migrated my main computing to the MBP and I now do backups with the Mac. Nonetheless I still had 5 backups in the W10 PC, an iPad backup and 4 iPhone backups. I deleted them all as they were old (2021) and I no longer needed them. I politely disagree with Lawrence above, deleting the 5 backups was nearly instant, a few seconds only, and they all disappeared from iTunes and the PC.

If you want to find out where iTunes on a PC stores the iDevices backups do the following:

First note that iTunes backups are hidden files and you will not see them normally on File Explorer.

1) On the Search Icon on the left side of the Taskbar type exactly %appdata% and hit enter

2) The file folder %appdata% will now show up on the left side. Click it once.

3) On the right side double click Roaming.

4) Double click Apple Computer.

5) Double click Mobile Sync.

6) Double click Backup.

I now show an empty folder since I just deleted my old iTunes backups. You however should see the backups that you still have on your PC. Select any of them and right click it, then click on Properties and you will see the size of the backup. Note that you cannot (and should not) delete the backups from File Explorer, go to iTunes > Edit (on the left top menu) > Preferences > Devices and delete them from there.

Enjoy...

BTW, I don't have a folder named Apple on either of the PCs (not 100% true as I have folder I created under Documents named Apple to store Apple documents but that is not what you are talking about).

The reason you may not see any files under a folder is likely because the folder contains hidden files. You can unhide all the hidden files in W11 by opening File Explorer, clicking This PC, from the View menu above select Show, and then Hidden Items. The procedure is different on W10. Be very careful however as you can very easily mess up your computer if you delete hidden files that are actually needed by the OS. I would not delete any files that are hidden if you don't know what you are doing, they are hidden for a purpose.

mh52 wrote:

OK I did that - but the folder still contains about 22GB of data. So I explored as you suggested in your supplementary answer and there is a folder I didn't create at this location : ThisPC>Windows (C:)>Users>[username]>Apple>MobileSync>Backup. That has one hidden file, with a very long file name, which when I show it has many individual sub folders and is 27.6GB in size.

Having deleted all visible backups in iTunes the device list is now empty. So, the question is how can I also empty this one remaining folder, if I can't do it from iTunes?

Thanks for the continuing help.

That is probably a corrupted backup, so iTunes doesn’t recognize it. You can delete the folder with the long file name, which will delete its contents also. Each folder in the Backup directory is actually a MySQL database, and each data element from an iPhone or other iOS device is a separate file in that folder.

My pleasure, glad it worked.