How to Back Up an iPhone to a Computer

A backup on a computer is the only kind that can put your iPhone back exactly as it was, including onto an older version of iOS. An iCloud backup cannot do that. It is also the kind that quietly disappears, because every new backup writes over the last one.

Archiving is what stops that. Here is the whole process, on both platforms.

Before you start

You need the cable, half an hour, and enough free space on the computer to hold roughly as much as your iPhone currently has stored. Leave the phone plugged in throughout.

On a Mac

1. Plug the iPhone in. The first time, the phone asks whether to trust the computer — tap Trust and enter your passcode.
2. Open Finder. The iPhone appears in the sidebar on the left, under Locations. Click it. Make sure Finder settings allow showing CD/iOS Devices in Finder sidebar.
3. On the General tab, choose “Back up all of the data on your iPhone to this Mac”.
4. Tick “Encrypt local backup” and set a password. Write it down somewhere safe: Apple cannot reset it, and an encrypted backup without its password cannot be opened. Encryption is also the only way the backup includes your health data, saved passwords and Wi-Fi networks.
5. Click Back Up Now and wait. Ten minutes to an hour, depending on how full the phone is.
6. Click Manage Backups, right-click the backup you have just made, and choose Archive. A padlock appears beside it.

The padlock means that backup will never be written over. Without it, the next one replaces it.

On Windows

Use the Apple Devices app from the Microsoft Store. Steps 1 to 5 are the same: connect and trust, open the app, click General, tick Encrypt local backup, set a password, then Back Up Now.

Step 6 does not exist. Windows has no Archive option — not in the Apple Devices app, and not in iTunes. To keep a backup you copy its folder yourself, before you make another one.

Open File Explorer and paste one of these into the address bar:

• Apple Devices, or iTunes from the Microsoft Store — %USERPROFILE%\Apple\MobileSync\Backup
• Older iTunes installed from Apple’s website — %APPDATA%\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup

Inside is a folder with a long name of letters and numbers. Copy it, paste it back into the same place, and rename the copy with the date — Backup-2026-09-13, for example. Nothing will ever overwrite the renamed copy.

Putting a copy somewhere safer

An archived backup still sits on the same computer, so it dies with it. To keep one on an external drive, copy the whole backup folder across: on a Mac it is at ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup, on Windows at the addresses above. Copy the entire folder and do not rename anything inside it.

What it costs you

An archived backup is a full copy, not a clever saving of space. Each one is about as big as the storage in use on your phone, so a few of them will fill a laptop.

Keep the one that matters — the one made before a big change, like a new version of iOS — and clear out the rest. On a Mac that is Manage Backups, right-click, Delete. On Windows it is deleting the folder.

To use one later, plug the phone in and choose Restore Backup on the same screen you backed it up from. Archived backups appear in the list alongside the ordinary ones.