How to Backup & Restore Your Jailbreak Apps

backup jailbreak appsWhen jailbreaking your iPhone, you always take the chance of messing up with the settings and losing all your Cydia apps. If you “experiment” a lot with your iPhone, I’m sure you’ve had to restore your iPhone on many occasions.

The problem when restoring your iPhone is that you have to resintall all your Cydia apps, which can take quite some time, depending on howm many you have.

Thankfully, there are a few options available out there that will allow you to easily backup and restore your Cydia applications.

Backup & Restore Jailbreak Apps with PkgBackup

PkgBackup is a $3.49 application but I think it has to be the best out there thanks to its great UI and ease of use. In top of backing up and restoring your jailbreak apps, PkgBackup will also preserve the way your icons are arranged on your springboard.

iClarified has a great tutorial on how to use PkgBackup. Check it out here.

Backup & Restore Cydia Apps with AptBackup

AptBackup supposedly works the same way as PkgBackup except it doesn’t save your icons arrangement. Personally, I was never able to get it to work, and it actually got me in serious  troubles before.

You might be luckier than I am though. I know a few people who use AptBackup and never had any problem with it.

Manually Backup and Restore Your Cydia Applications

If you feel like messing around your iPhone folders and don’t mind taking risks, there is a way to manually backup your jailbreak apps. I haven’t done that myself, and to be honest, I probably never will, but I want to share this option with you.

Simon wrote an interesting tutorial on his blog on how to manually backup your jailbreak apps. Read it if you’re interested.

My favorite way to backup jailbreak apps is still PkgBackup. Sure it costs a few bucks, but to me, it is from far the most reliable and easiest option.

Do you ever backup your jailbreak apps? If so, how do you usually go about it?