How to Backup and Restore Cydia Apps with PkgBackup

How to Backup and Restore Cydia Apps with PkgBackup

Whenever there comes a new firmware or you reinstall your iPhone firmware to refresh your iPhone, you can easily backup and restore your iTunes Apps and all your personal stuff. What about the apps installed from Cydia if you have a jailbroken iPhone?

When you restore your iPhone/iTouch firmware you lose all your packages/apps installed from Cydia and it’s really time consuming to reinstall all Cydia apps. I’ve been asked many times on how to backup and restore Cydia apps.

In this guide you’ll learn on how to backup your Cydia Apps and then Restore Cydia apps back into your iPhone/iPod Touch. If you’ve installed a lot of Cydia apps and want to know how to backup all Cydia apps, you’re at the right place.

How to Backup and Restore Cydia Apps

In order to backup and restore Cydia apps, you need to get PkgBackup from Cydia.

PkgBackup is an iPhone app available in Cydia that let to backup all Cydia apps installed on iPhone/iPod Touch and later you can restore Cydia apps that you’ve backup. PkgBackup let you share, exchange, send your packages to others on Facebook also. PkgBackup can also backup your Springboard layout.

You can purchase PkgBackup from Cydia for $3.49. Assuming that you’ve purchased the app and have installed it. Now let’s start backing up Cydia Apps and then restore them.

You must Jailbreak your iPhone First:

How to: Jailbreak iPhone 3.1.2

How to Backup Cydia Apps on iPhone/iPod Touch

  1. Open the PkgBackup and go to Active Packages to Backup.
  2. By double tapping a single package it will turn black/blue. Black means the package will not be included in the backup while the blue color indicates that you’ve selected the package to backup. By default, all package, you’ve installed from Cydia, are selected for Backup.
  3. You can also view the package detail by a single tap on any Cydia package. You can also set to backup or not from Package details by turning the backup switch ON/OFF.
  4. Navigate back to the main view, include or not your springboard layout and hit ‘Back Up’. An address book entry will be created.
  5. Sync up your iPhone with your computer.

Tips

  • To publish the story feed on Facebook, make sure to always be connect to Facebook first AND to allow the application to publish on Facebook.
  • You can import/export the ‘Pkg Backup’ address book entry. Voila, you got portable back up!

How to Restore Cydia Apps Backup

  1. Tap on the active packages to view the list of packages to restore.
  2. Once the ‘Packages List’ is display, double-tap a package to select (blue color) or deselect (black color) it. By default, all UNINSTALLED packages are selected.
  3. To view a package details, tap once a package. Once on the ‘Package Details’ view, you can select or deselect it for the restore.
  4. Navigate back to the main view, include or not your springboard layout and hit ‘Restore’.
  5. That’s it! All packages will be restored in their LATEST version.

How to Share Cydia Apps Backup

X & Y bought PkgBackup. Y want to have the same iphone/ipod as X.

Steps for X:

  1. X does a backup operation.
  2. X open its Contacts app & find the entry ‘Pkg Backup’.
  3. X copies the following fields: company & note
  4. X paste those fields in a email or file that will be send to Y.

Steps for Y:

  1. Y create an entry in Contacts app with:
    • first name: Pkg
    • last name: Backup
  2. Y pastes the received ‘company’ date in the new contact company entry.
  3. Y pastes the received ‘note’ date in the new contact note entry.
  4. Y launches PkgBackup & hit restore.

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9 comments… add one
tiphone January 7, 2010, 1:40 pm

Will data and user settings of each program be backuped? Or will the programs be restored only?

T_baby April 30, 2010, 8:19 pm

Having problems wit Pkg backup. Isn’t it meant 2 create a list of my cydia apps in my contacts, instead I hav a long list of numbers & letters that don’t make sense. Help!!

erdem-1612 October 31, 2010, 3:56 am

this doesn’t work for me. When i press the restore button it says Warning! No internet connection detected but my internet is activated. what can i do i want my apps back:(

wasted April 4, 2011, 10:11 pm

Any news on the issues with restore no working with firmware 4.3.1?

sheharyar October 14, 2011, 11:45 am

u made me understand very easily with X and Y 🙂 thanks 🙂

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