Have you ever wondered how to back up .ipa games and applications you have installed on your iPhone or iPad to your computer? If you’ve installed cracked games and applications on your phone or transferred it to your device from another computer using iFunbox or some other tools, iTunes won’t backup these apps and you stand to lose them if you even upgrade or re-install your firmware.
I installed a few games from a friend’s computer a couple of weeks back and I was looking for a way to backup the ipa backup on my computer but all suggestions I saw on blogs and forums didn’t work. I was asked to use Installous but for some reasons, it never worked for me. I had to find ways to backup them up since the files were quite heavy and I didn’t want to download them all over again.
As explained here, installous allows you to download cracked ipa games and applications (which I do not encourage) and even sync the files with iTunes but it may not work for some apps not downloaded through installous.
If you apps are not going to be properly synced, you’ll be notified that existing apps on your device will be removed. Hey., I think your iPhone / iPad is already jailbroken, right?
Alternative way to sync ipa files with iTunes
– Download and install iFunbox
-Run iFunbox and connect your iPhone or iPad
– Go to iFunbox classic
– Click on User Applications
– Click on CTRL + A to select all your applications or selectively choose the cracked ones you want to back up
– Right-click and select Backup to .ipa Package as shown above
– Save the files to …My Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Mobile Applications
– The files are now saved to your iTunes folder and can be synced.
The method worked perfectly on my device. With the .ipa files backed up, you won’t need to re-download them the next time you restore your device.