If you want to manually copy or backup iPhone data, you will need to know the locations of the database files on your iPhone. We’ll cover where to find SMS messages, Notes, pictures, videos, call history, voicemail, address book, and the calendar, they are all located within your iPhone /private/var/mobile/Library directory.

Remember, you will not be able access these locations directly unless your iPhone is jailbroken! Without a jailbreak you have to backup your iPhone normally since you can not access these files.

iPhone data backup locations

These are all located on the iPhone. In most cases you are looking for a database backup file named something like “sms.db” and “call_history.db”:

iPhone SMS/Text Message backup

/private/var/Mobile/Library/SMS

(If you want to, you can access and read iPhone SMS backups directly on your computer)

Notes backup

/private/var/mobile/Library/Notes

Call History backup

/private/var/mobile/Library/CallHistory

Voicemail backup

/private/var/mobile/Library/Voicemail

Voicemails are stored as 1.amr, 2.amr, within this directory. The custom greeting is stored as Greeting.amr

Contacts/Address Book backup

/private/var/mobile/Library/AddressBook/

Mail backup

/private/var/mobile/Library/Mail

Pictures and Video Recordings

/private/var/mobile/Media/DCIM/

Calendar backup

/private/var/mobile/Library/Calendar/

This is really only relevant to those who have an iPhone with jailbreak, since you can’t access these directories on the iPhone without an SSH/SFTP client. Without a jailbreak, you probably just need the local Mac/PC iPhone backup location so check that out instead.