Turn Off iPhone Backups
A cursory glance at Twitter over the past few weeks shows quite a few people aren’t happy with the time it takes the iPhone 2.0 software to complete a backup when it’s synced in iTunes.
There is an easy way to prevent iTunes from backing up the iPhone, but first a word of caution. Backups are beneficial. They allow you to quickly recover from a crash by restoring your settings. The backups contain passwords stored in keychain, all of your app settings, wireless APs, and the list goes on. With that said, do one last sync, then disable backups and if you need to restore you have a slightly out-of-date backup to restore from.
It goes without saying, but the procedure is for OS X, Windows folks should feel free to buy a Mac and circle back here to continue.
- Quit iTunes
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Open Terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal)
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Type defaults write com.apple.itunes DeviceBackupsDisabled -bool YES
- Open iTunes. Your done.
Backups will no longer occur, nor will you be able to force a backup in the context menu associate with the iPhone. You will, however, be able to restore from the backup you created prior to disabling the backup. If you’d like to enable backups again, follow the same procedure but type defaults write com.apple.itunes DeviceBackupsDisabled -bool NO instead.