Question on backing up jailbroken iPhone 3gs

Mattyk182

macrumors member
So I have a ton of apps on my phones, (mostly games) and last time I restored from my jailbreak, I lost all of my progress in those games and had to start over like in Angry Birds. I own all the apps so no, I didn't download any illegally. I would like to know...Is it safe to back my phone up while it's jailbroken or am I completely screwed?
 
Its safe :) I've been syncing my jailbroken iDevices with iTunes for a few years now and haven't run into any problems. If you still don't want to sync with iTunes you could also use PKGBackup (download in Cydia) which lets you back up your app data, cydia sources, cydia apps, contacts, notes, mail, ect. to a dropbox account (which you can restore from later).
 
So I can sync it and backup everything like I normally would and It won't crash my phone or anything? I heard of something called "iPhone Explorer" that basically does the same thing as pkgbackup. Does anyone recommend this? Thanks for the reply by the way!
 
No, syncing your jailbroken device won't make it crash. iTunes doesn't recognize whether its a jailbroken device or not. All it does is go to your apps and copy the data associated with them, along with saved preferences and calendar entries, contacts and stuff. Actual system files that make your device jailbroken are not backed up. Also if you decide to sync it make sure you don't update the os when it asks you, or your phone will be un-jailbroken. But other then that everything will work fine.

Oh and iPhone explorer (which is now called iExplorer) is a file browsing program. So if you launched it and plugged in your iPhone, you'd be able to browse your phone as if it were the hard drive on your computer. So if you know the directory at which app data was stored you could copy those files off your device and replace them later. I still recommend PKGBackup because it works the same as above, only its automated so you don't have to do any of the file copying yourself. And if you integrate it with dropbox, you don't have to worry about storing the backup on your computer. :)
 
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No, syncing your jailbroken device won't make it crash. iTunes doesn't recognize whether its a jailbroken device or not. All it does is go to your apps and copy the data associated with them, along with saved preferences and calendar entries, contacts and stuff. Actual system files that make your device jailbroken are not backed up. Also if you decide to sync it make sure you don't update the os when it asks you, or your phone will be un-jailbroken. But other then that everything will work fine.

Oh and iPhone explorer (which is now called iExplorer) is a file browsing program. So if you launched it and plugged in your iPhone, you'd be able to browse your phone as if it were the hard drive on your computer. So if you know the directory at which app data was stored you could copy those files off your device and replace them later. I still recommend PKGBackup because it works the same as above, only its automated so you don't have to do any of the file copying yourself. And if you integrate it with dropbox, you don't have to worry about storing the backup on your computer. :)

Thanks a lot for the advice! I really appreciate it!
 
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