Dear Aunt TUAW: Will my jailbroken iPhone back up?

Dear Aunt TUAW,

I want to jailbreak my 4th gen iPod touch, but there is something I'm unsure about. If I want to unjailbreak it (because of performance issues, etc.), is there any possible way for me to do that without losing all of my data? I have scoured the internet, and I haven't been able to come up with a concrete answer. Thanks for your help.

Love & kissies,

Your nephew, Luke

Dear Luke,

Are you flossing regularly? Good oral hygiene isn't just about brushing. Your gum health is tremendously important, after all you don't want to end up with gingivitis.

As for backups? You can backup a jailbroken device just like any nonjailbroken one. Connect it to iTunes and let it do its work. Be aware, however, that jailbreak-specific apps generally are *not* backed up through iTunes. You usually have to re-install them by hand unless you want to hunt down a third-party tool to help with that.

Hugs and oatmeal cookies (after a well-balanced nutritious meal, of course),

Auntie T.

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Dear Aunt TUAW, I want to jailbreak my 4th gen iPod touch, but there is something I'm unsure about. If I want to unjailbreak it...

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Gian Piero

Just a comment: Just around the time I jailbroke my iDevice, backups mysteriously stopped working. The option wouldn't even show up when right clicking on the iDevice icon in iTunes. After much online investigation I read that by trashing the iTunes preference files I could reset iTunes and get the option back. And it worked!

On a Mac, the preference files are located in:

User/Library/Preferences/

Then trash anything that starts with com.apple.iTunes (after closing iTunes, of course!)

January 19 2011 at 6:54 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jason

There are plenty of apps in the Cydia store that will back up the JB apps, making it easy to restore. If you're comfortable with a command-line spend 10 seconds with google and you'll find step-by-step guides on how to do it that way too.

When I upgraded my iPhone4 from jailbroken 4.0.1 to jailbroken 4.1 I just made a list of all of the JB apps I had installed then reinstalled them one-by-one. It was pretty painless and only took a few minutes.

The answer is: Yes. You can back up Apple apps, JB apps, data, etc.

January 18 2011 at 4:28 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Chris McDonald

Performance issues? What performance issues?

January 18 2011 at 4:10 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Chris McDonald's comment

Shawn

I know when I enable multitasking on my 1st gen touch, it slows things down. Some times enough that I go in and disable it.

January 18 2011 at 4:26 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Shawn

So my question is this. I have a jailbroke. First gen iPod touch. I plan to have a Verizon iPhone on Feb 10. I will not be jailbreaking my iPhone as the only reason I have is multitasking. What is the best approach? Can I use the backup on my new phone to set it up? Will my Angry Birds acheivements copy over?

January 18 2011 at 3:34 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

9 replies to Shawn's comment

rackley

The answer is yes:
1) Your iphone will back up to iTunes just like you normally do. If you want to put it back to original settings just do a "restore". When its done restoring, all your jailbreak items will be gone.
2) 3rd party Apps (i.e. like from Cydia) are not backed up with iTunes. There are other packages that do those backups though, like PKGBACKUP for one. So generally if you didn't buy the App on iTunes it won't back it up or let you upgrade to a newer version.

January 18 2011 at 3:26 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

shippo0708

it will backup the settings of most apps on cydia, such as iRealSMS and SBSettings..

January 18 2011 at 3:15 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Joshua Ochs

So after all that fluff, the answer is "no".

January 18 2011 at 2:47 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to Joshua Ochs's comment

Todd

Please read it again. Yes your phone will continue to be backed up, your data will continue to be backed up.

What is not backed up, are jail-broken specific apps. You will have to reinstall them yourself..not a big deal really.

January 18 2011 at 2:50 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Justin

No, the answer is yes.

You can backup a jailbroken iOS device exactly as you would a non-jailbroken device. The only thing you can't backup is the JAILBREAK SPECIFIC applications (ie stuff downloaded through Cydia). If you're going to try to summarize "without the fluff" at least read it and get it right.

January 18 2011 at 2:59 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply