[jonniecraig]

Hello,

I no longer have enough space on my mac book hard disk to backup my iphone when I update. Is there anyway for me to not backup / backup to an external hard drive instead?

I tried just to press x when it starts to backup but it cancels the whole thing.

-Jonnie

[chabig]

iPhone backups are stored in your home library: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/

Mine is just 1GB (media, apps, contacts, etc. that are already on your computer don't get backed up), so it sounds like you desperately need a larger hard drive, or else you need to free some space by moving some of your other files to the external drive. I don't think there is a way to change where the backups are stored.

[anthology123]

You can go into the iTunes preferences and set it under device not to automatically backup your iPhone, but you have bigger problems if you are running out of space. If you have less than 1GB of space left on your Mac, be careful. Just like a Windows computer, too, running out of disc space could cause your disc to crash and you might lose critical data.

[cbcory]

The issue (if the iphone is not backup to the computer) is where to backup iphone? IF the answer is an external hard drive - how to set up to automatically backup iphone to an external drive?

[chabig]

Putting aside the issue that you need to free up space or get a new hard drive...

With iOS 5, it's not necessary to back up to your hard drive. You can back up to the cloud instead, by going to Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup and turn on iCloud Backup.