iPhone and iPad backups taking space on your Mac: how to remove old ones

Backing up an iPhone or iPad to a Mac stores a full copy locally. A single backup is often 5–40 GB, and old backups from phones you no longer own stay until you remove them.

Delete them from Finder

• Connect an iPhone or iPad and select it in the Finder sidebar.
• Click Manage Backups… in the General tab.
• Select an old backup, check its date and device name, and click Delete Backup.

If you no longer have a device connected, the same list is reachable from an iPhone you plug in, or by opening the backup folder directly (below) to check sizes.

Where they are

~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup

Each subfolder is one backup, named by a long device ID. The folders are not human-readable, so use Finder’s Manage Backups to identify which is which rather than deleting folders by guesswork.

Before you delete

Make sure the device you care about also has a recent iCloud backup or a backup you intend to keep. A deleted local backup cannot be recovered.

Backups are one piece of System Data. See how to find the others.

Disclosure: this guide is published by the developer of McCleaner. Scanning is free; cleaning is paid, from €1.99. Back up important data before deleting anything. Commands are provided as is.