\Users\[YourUsername]\Apple\MobileSync\Backup\
The other answer is far more concrete. If you connect your iPhone to a Mac (running macOS Catalina or later) and open , or to a Windows PC and open iTunes , you will find a button labeled “Back Up Now.” This creates a local backup directly on that computer’s hard drive. So, where is that backup? On a Mac, navigate to ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/ —a folder deliberately hidden to prevent accidental tampering. On Windows, it lives in \Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\ . These folders contain not a single file, but a labyrinth of cryptically named subfolders, each representing a chunk of your phone’s data. Unlike iCloud, these local backups are fully under your physical control. They do not require a subscription, and they can be archived to an external hard drive or encrypted with a password. The trade-off is responsibility: if your hard drive crashes, the backup dies with it. where iphone backup