Deleting old backups for iOS devices

Do you own multiple iOS devices, have you recently upgraded to the new iPad or iPhone 4S? Are you backing up your iOS devices to iTunes or were you?

If you are backing up to iTunes and you purchased a new device your old backup is most likely still stored in your iTunes folder using up space on your hard drive, unless you have already deleted that backup. I noticed that I had 2 old iPhone backups stored in iTunes, when I deleted them I free'd up over 9GBs of space on my hard drive. To reclaim some space on your hard drive follow the instructions:

1. Open iTunes


2. Click iTunes in the top menu bar and choose Preferences


3. When the popover window opens choose Devices

You should see a list of Device backups:



 

Select your old backups and then click the Delete Backup button. Make sure you are selecting the correct backup, if you recently purchased a new iOS device and you see a backup from 8 months ago that should tell you that you are not deleting a current backup. If you are unsure then you can always backup your device before doing this and your latest backup will display the current date and time of the backup, this way you know you are not deleting a backup of your current device.

If you have any questions or comments, try me on Twitter @totalipad