How to Delete iOS Backups From Your Mac

If you’ve ever plugged an iPhone or iPad into your Mac, there’s almost certainly a backup of it sitting somewhere on your boot drive. Each backup can be 30-150GB. They don’t auto-delete. Most people have backups from devices they no longer own, taking serious space for no reason.

This is one of the highest-value cleanup wins on a Mac — often 50GB+ freed in five minutes. Here’s the right way to do it.

Where iOS backups live

On modern macOS (Catalina 10.15 and later), iOS backups are stored at:

~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/

Each subfolder inside is a separate device backup. The folder names are long hex strings — they look like 00008101-001E29682EBA001E or similar. That’s the device’s unique identifier. Not human-readable on purpose.

The folders are usually 30-150GB each. A heavy iPhone user with photos and apps can easily have a single backup at 100GB. Multiply across multiple devices and time periods, and you’ve got the typical scenario.

Worth checking right now:

1. Open Finder
2. Cmd+Shift+G
3. Paste ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
4. Enable folder size calculation: Cmd+J → “Calculate all sizes”
5. Switch to List view → sort by Size

You’ll see how many backups you have and how much space they’re using. The reveal is often dramatic.

Method 1: Use Finder’s Manage Backups dialog

The cleanest way. Plug in your current iOS device:

1. Open Finder
2. Click your iPhone/iPad in the sidebar (under Locations)
3. In the device’s General tab, click “Manage Backups”
4. You’ll see a list of all backups for all devices, with creation dates and sizes
5. Right-click any backup → Delete Backup

This works without modifying files directly. Apple’s UI handles cleanup properly — including any references the system maintains.

What you see in the Manage Backups dialog:

• Device name (e.g., “Sarah’s iPhone 12”)
• Last backup date
• Backup size
• Encryption status

Anything that looks unfamiliar — old device names, very old dates — is a candidate for deletion. Keep your current device’s most recent backup. Delete the rest.

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Method 2: Direct folder deletion

If you don’t have a current iOS device to plug in, or if Finder doesn’t show the device for some reason, you can delete folders directly.

1. In Finder, navigate to ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
2. For each subfolder, look at the modification date and size
3. Drag old/unrecognized folders to Trash
4. Empty Trash

Direct deletion works fine, but you lose the human-readable device names. If you want to know which folder corresponds to which device before deleting, you have to check the Info.plist inside each folder:

plutil -p ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/Backup/<folder>/Info.plist | head

That command shows the Info.plist contents, which includes the device name and serial. Use it to verify before deleting.

Method 3: Via the legacy iTunes path (older Macs)

If you’re still on macOS Mojave 10.14 or earlier (you really shouldn’t be, but happens), iOS backups are managed through iTunes:

1. Open iTunes
2. iTunes menu → Preferences → Devices
3. Select a backup → click Delete Backup

Same end result. Apple deprecated iTunes’ device sync features in Catalina, moving them to Finder, so this only applies to old machines.

What’s actually in a backup

If you’re nervous about deleting, it helps to know what’s preserved (and what isn’t) in iOS backups:

Included:

• App data and settings
• Camera Roll photos and videos (if Photos isn’t using iCloud)
• Messages, voicemail, call history
• Notes, calendars, contacts
• Health data
• Home screen layout
• Wi-Fi networks

NOT included:

• The apps themselves (just their data — apps re-download from App Store)
• Synced media (music, podcasts, audiobooks)
• Photos already in iCloud Photo Library
• Data already synced to iCloud (most stuff, by default)

For most people in 2025-2026, iCloud has eaten most of what backups used to be needed for. iCloud Photos handles your camera roll. iCloud Drive handles documents. Messages syncs through iCloud. Health data syncs through iCloud.

That means: a Mac-based iOS backup is largely redundant if you have iCloud running. Most users can delete every Mac-based backup without losing anything that isn’t already in Apple’s cloud.

When you should keep a Mac backup

The cases where keeping a Mac-based iOS backup is worth the space:

1. Encrypted backups with health and keychain data. iCloud Backup doesn’t include all of this; an encrypted Mac backup does.
2. No iCloud subscription. If you don’t pay for iCloud storage and your device is too big for the free 5GB, a Mac backup is your only full option.
3. Slow internet. iCloud Backup over a slow connection can take days. A Mac backup over USB-C takes minutes.
4. Pre-update safety net. Right before an iOS update, a fresh Mac backup is a reliable rollback point.

For these cases, keep ONE backup of your current device. Delete everything else.

How to verify deletion freed actual space

After deleting backups, the storage should free up immediately. To verify:

du -sh ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/Backup/

That command shows the current total size of all backups. After deletion, this should be smaller.

Or check System Settings → General → Storage. The “iOS Files” category should drop. Note: macOS sometimes takes a few minutes to recalculate the storage breakdown.

If space doesn’t free up:

1. Empty the Trash
2. Restart your Mac
3. Recheck

Some files take a moment to fully release.

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Stopping new backups from filling space

Going forward, you have two reasonable strategies:

Strategy 1: iCloud Backup only. Disable Mac-based backups by not connecting iOS devices to your Mac, and rely on iCloud Backup. This is what most people should do.

Strategy 2: Keep one fresh Mac backup, rotate. Connect your iPhone monthly, let it back up, delete the previous backup. You always have a recent Mac backup, but never accumulate old ones.

Strategy 1 is simpler. Strategy 2 is for users who really want a local backup option (e.g., they prefer encrypted local backups for keychain/health data).

To set up automatic Mac backups via Wi-Fi (so you don’t have to remember to plug in):

1. Plug in iPhone via USB-C
2. Finder → device → General tab
3. Check “Show this iPhone when on Wi-Fi”
4. Click “Back up all of the data on this iPhone to this Mac”
5. Apply

Now every time both devices are on the same Wi-Fi network, your Mac will automatically back up the iPhone in the background. The downside is the storage accumulation — these auto-backups will eat the same space we just cleared if you don’t periodically clean up.

Common pitfalls

A few things that trip people up:

• Deleting the only backup of an old device that you want to migrate from later. If you’ve sold or lost an old iPhone but think you might want its data, keep the backup.
• Confusing iOS backups with Time Machine backups. These are separate. iOS backups are in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/. Time Machine backups go on external drives or to Time Capsule.
• Trying to delete from Trash and getting “in use” errors. This happens if iTunes or Finder is mid-sync. Quit those apps, then empty Trash.
• Backup stuck deleting forever. If a Trash empty hangs on a backup folder, restart your Mac and try again. Usually fixes it.

Quick summary

For most users with no current need for old iOS backups:

1. Open Finder → Cmd+Shift+G → ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
2. Sort by Size, calculate all sizes
3. Drag everything to Trash (or keep your current device’s most recent)
4. Empty Trash
5. Verify in Storage that space freed up

Five minutes, often 50-150GB freed. The single highest-value cleanup task on most Macs that have ever connected to an iOS device.