Say I backed up an iPhone to a local computer three times over the years:
If I go to restore iPhone from my local iTunes backup will it always restore to the most recent backup (1/2026) and I will find no memory/history of older backups to choose from as a restore option
Basically are local backups a one version snapshot at all times such that the backup gets overwritten each round that I backup? How does this system work exactly?
Every backup is a single snapshot that gets overwritten each time, so there is no history.
Occasionally, an existing backup will get renamed (e.g. from Siguza's iPhone to Siguza's iPhone - 24. Jun 2023 at 15:17) and a new backup with the old name will be created. As far as I'm aware, this only happens when you either transfer your data to a new device, or wipe an existing device.
If you need a backup history for your mobile device, then you should keep a backup history of the machine you back up onto - either in full, or if you just want the iOS backups, ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup.
If you are backing up locally, you can manage stored backups from the Finder/iTunes interface.
