How to make an iPhone backup on a Mac (and encrypt it)

By Caner Kaya, Kayabyte · Last updated 16 October 2026

A backup of your iPhone on your Mac is the most complete copy of your text messages you can make yourself. It holds the messages stored on the phone, often going back years, which is usually far more than the Messages app on a Mac or iCloud shows you. It’s also a sensible thing to have before a phone gets lost, broken or replaced in the middle of a dispute.

This guide walks you through making one in Finder, the free tool already on your Mac. It takes about 10 minutes of your time, plus waiting.

Before you start

• A Mac with macOS 10.15 or later (Finder handles iPhone backups from then on).
• Your iPhone and its cable, or a cable adapter for your Mac’s ports.
• Your iPhone passcode.
• Free space on the Mac. A backup can be anywhere from a few GB to over 100 GB, depending on what’s on the phone. To check, on the iPhone go to Settings, General, iPhone Storage. Photos stored in iCloud don’t count towards the backup.
• Time. The first backup can take from 15 minutes to a few hours. Keep the phone connected until it’s done.

Step 1: Connect and trust

1. Plug the iPhone into the Mac and unlock the phone.
2. If the iPhone asks “Trust This Computer?”, tap Trust and enter your passcode.
3. On the Mac, open a Finder window. Your iPhone appears in the sidebar under Locations. Click it.
4. If the Mac asks to trust the iPhone, click Trust.

If the iPhone doesn’t appear: try another cable or port, make sure the phone is unlocked, and in Finder, choose Finder, Settings, Sidebar, and tick “CDs, DVDs and iOS Devices”.

Step 2: Choose a backup to this Mac

1. In the iPhone window in Finder, stay on the General tab.
2. Under Backups, choose “Back up all of the data on your iPhone to this Mac”.

This doesn’t switch off your iCloud Backup. You can have both.

Step 3: Decide whether to encrypt

Below that option is a checkbox: “Encrypt local backup”. Encryption protects the backup with a password, so someone who gets into your Mac can’t read your messages from it. It also includes some extra data in the backup, such as saved passwords and Health data.

Should you encrypt? If anyone else uses your Mac, or if your messages are sensitive (they usually are, if they’re for court), encrypting is a good idea. Software that reads backups, including Exhibitly, can open an encrypted backup when you type the password.

If you tick it:

1. Choose a password you will remember. Write it down somewhere safe, away from the Mac, such as on paper in a drawer.
2. Optionally, tick “Remember this password in my keychain” so your Mac remembers it.

Important: Apple can’t recover this password for you. Without it, an encrypted backup can’t be opened.

Step 4: Back up now

1. Click Back Up Now.
2. Watch the progress near the bottom of the window, or the small circle next to the iPhone in the sidebar.
3. Don’t unplug the iPhone until it finishes. When it’s done, “Latest backup to this Mac” shows today’s date and time.

If the backup stops with an error, the most common causes are not enough space on the Mac, a loose cable, or the phone locking. Free up space, try again, and keep the phone unlocked if needed.

Where the backup is stored

Your Mac keeps backups in a hidden folder in your user’s Library: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup. To see it, in Finder, click Manage Backups in the iPhone window, then Control-click a backup and choose Show in Finder.

Please don’t open, rename or change files inside the backup. It’s made of many files with coded names, and changing one can make the backup unusable. Software that reads backups only needs to read them.

If you want an extra safe copy for a legal case, you can copy the whole backup folder to an external drive.

If you’ve forgotten the backup password

This happens a lot, especially if encryption was turned on years ago.

• Try the passwords you used back then, and check your Mac’s Keychain Access app for an entry called “iOS Backup” or similar if you ticked “Remember this password”.
• Reset it from the iPhone. On the iPhone, go to Settings, General, Transfer or Reset iPhone, Reset, Reset All Settings, and enter your passcode. This removes the backup password and resets settings like Wi-Fi passwords, wallpaper and screen layout, but it doesn’t delete your messages, photos or apps. Then make a new encrypted backup with a new password.

The old encrypted backup still can’t be opened without its original password, but the new one will contain your messages as they are on the phone today.

Common questions

Does the backup include my messages if I use Messages in iCloud? A backup made in Finder includes the messages stored on your iPhone. Messages that aren’t on the phone any more won’t be in it: deleted conversations, messages removed by the Keep Messages setting (30 days or 1 year instead of Forever), or older messages the iPhone may have cleared to save space because they’re kept in iCloud. Scroll back in the conversation on your phone to see how far it goes.

Does it include photos sent in messages? Attachments stored on the phone are included. If old attachments were offloaded to iCloud, some may be missing.

Can I keep using the phone while it backs up? Yes, but try not to unplug it.

How often should I back up? For a legal case, make a backup now, and another one before any hearing, so you have the newest messages too.

Turning the backup into a document

Once you have a backup, you need software to read it, because the backup itself isn’t something you can open and print. Exhibitly is a Mac app we make for this: it opens your backup (encrypted too, with your password), lets you pick a conversation, and creates a PDF with the date, time and sender on every message, with phone number or email, plus an Excel file and the original photos. Nothing leaves your Mac. If your goal is a printout for court, our guide How to print text messages from iPhone for court explains the whole process.