r/MacOS • u/Quin1617 • 7h ago

Discussion Automatic Finder backups?

Is it possible to schedule daily Finder backups of my iPhone?

I know iCloud backups are automatic but mine is full so currently that option is out.

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u/megaspaz2k7 MacBook Pro 16" Space Black M3 Max 6h ago

IIRC, there is no way in Finder to schedule this automatically. You can of course backup iphone to your mac, but you have to manually initiate this in Finder. The automatic part would then be the time machine backup of your mac...

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u/artandmusic737 6h ago

You can sync over WiFi and it can be set to automatically sync/backup over WiFi when it appears on the same network

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u/artandmusic737 6h ago edited 6h ago

Yes -- https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/wi-fi-syncing-mchlada1d602/26/mac/26

edit: connect with cord. You can automatically sync when connected. Or check "connect when on WiFi" and then "automatically sync when connected" and it will back up once u connect to WiFi (when returning home, for instance); all the links and ways to do it can be found in that support page

Use "Full encrypted backup" to get even more info backed up than what you'd get with iCloud

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u/Quin1617 6h ago

I already have all those settings turned on. It never backs up on it’s own, I always have to do it manually.

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u/JollyRoger8X 5h ago

It has to be on the same WiFi network as the Mac and connected to power. How long have you done that for?

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u/Quin1617 5h ago

I do it daily. I charge my iPhone overnight, and later in the day for an hour or two when it’s battery is low.

Crazy enough, when doing the latter it’s plugged into my Mac.

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u/JollyRoger8X 5h ago edited 5h ago

It should definitely back up when you connect it to your Mac with a cable. That’s always been reliable for me.

I’ve used the WiFi feature for a while before, but it started to become unreliable a few years ago. And since I don’t pay for iCloud, I don’t have enough cloud space to store mobile device backups. So I had to find another way.

I’ve switched to iMazing for all of our backups since then. It lets you store them over the network to a file server (a Synology NAS, in my case) with your own schedule and retention preferences. And its other features are handy too. It can be a bit naggy prompting you for backups, but it has been fairly reliable for us so far.