Old iPhone backups on your Mac: find and remove them
iPhone and iPad backups under ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup.
What it is
Full local backups of iPhones and iPads, one directory per device, written by Finder or by the older iTunes.
What it is for
They restore a phone after a loss or a replacement. They are also kept forever: a device you stopped using years ago still has its backup, and each one can be tens of gigabytes.
Is it safe to delete?
With judgement. A backup of a device you still own and still back up to iCloud is redundant; a backup of a device that no longer exists may be the only copy of what was on it. Broza shows the device name and the date, moves nothing without confirmation, and quarantines rather than deletes.
Which backups Broza proposes
A backup under ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/ is proposed when the Last Backup Date in its Info.plist is older than --unused-after (one year by default). Broza names the device in the reasoning and moves the backup to quarantine. A backup whose Info.plist cannot be read is reported as a warning and never proposed.
Check it on your Mac
Broza is a free, open-source command-line tool. Every command below is read-only except clean, and clean is a dry run until you add --apply.
broza explain old-backups broza suggest --category old-backups broza clean --category old-backupsNot installed yet? Install Broza with Homebrew, the installer script, or Cargo.