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I have an app on my iPhone that no longer works (it loads to splash screen then quits), but I have some files on there. Is there any way for me to pull these files off through FTP/SSH/Finder (I don't want to go through a backup) from the phone without jailbreaking it?

I'm fine with installing applications on my computer (Mac/Win7) but I'd prefer to keep my iPhone "legal".

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Jailbreaking is legal. –  PiPeep Aug 11 '09 at 4:26
(See clean-room reverse engineering). That is like calling WINE illegal. –  PiPeep Aug 11 '09 at 4:27
That's why I put it in quotes. I know it's technically legal, but by "legal", I mean complying with the EULA. –  waiwai933 Aug 11 '09 at 5:44
heh, EULAs. We all know they are unenforceable. –  LiraNuna Aug 12 '09 at 20:09

5 Answers 5

up vote 5 down vote accepted

You can't use SSH, no. That does require jailbreaking, and RipDev's InstallerApp as mentioned in nik's answer does jailbreak your phone, no matter what it says.

This tool (http://code.google.com/p/iphonebrowser/ ) will let you browse the iphone's file system, though if your phone is not jailbroken, it will only really let you read things off it.

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According to the phonebrowser doco "You can use it with or without jailbreaking your phone, but if you don't jailbreak, you won't get very far! A locked iPhone basically has a small area of folders called a sandbox to work with" –  Sam Aug 13 '09 at 12:52

You may be able to extract the files out of the backup that is taken by iTunes each time you sync the phone. Both of the apps below require that you are not encrypting your backups in iTunes.

On Mac OSX you can use the iPhone Backup Extractor

Alternatively for Windows you could try Backup Extractor for iPhone

Both are free utilities (or offer a free version), but I have not tried either of them. I can confirm that Backup Extractor successfully restored files out of my iPhone backup. I don't have a Mac to test iPhone Backup Extractor.

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There is the InstallerApp path from RipDev


Supported on Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.

InstallerApp is commercial software. One license costs US $7.

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You can access the Media folder with Disk Aid. (Without jailbreaking).

Any more than that and jailbreak is required.

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While I'm guessing your app died because of a firmware update,you might want to restart your iPhone to rule out memory issues.

  1. Hold down the silver Sleep button for several seconds and a shutdown slider will appear at the top of the screen.
  2. After it's off, you can press the button again to start up.

I believe you can do a more forceful restart by holding down the Home and Sleep buttons together for several seconds, but that seems to skip whatever cleanup the phone would do on a clean shutdown.

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