Reminder: Delete iTunes Backups to Recover Hard Drive Space

This is probably a tip most of you know about, but for me it was something I had completely forgotten about until I realized free space on my Mac’s hard drive was running low.

Now that most of us rely on iCloud for backup of our iOS devices, older backups within iTunes are no longer needed. As I checked the backups still in iTunes, I had some dating back to 2009 for multiple devices. After deleting them, I had freed up 170GB of hard drive space (yes, 170GB).

How to delete iTunes backups?

1. Launch iTunes on your Mac/PC and open up Preferences:

Mac: iTunes –> Preferences
Windows: Edit –> Preferences

2. Click the ‘Devices’ tab (your device does not need to be connected). Select the backups in the list and click ‘Delete Backup’. Maybe leave the most recent one in case of an emergency, if you’re paranoid.

If you don’t use iTunes on your computer to backup your iOS devices, then this will free up a tonne of space. Let me know how much space you were able to recover!

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