Remove all traces/remnants of jailbreak

[psywzrd]

Like many others, I have pretty much given up on jailbreaking at this point. My iPhone 7 is on 11.0.3 and my iPhone x will be here in less than a week. In preparation for the arrival of my new phone, I’m wondering if there’s anyway to remove all traces/remnants left over from when my phone was still jailbroken.

I know that I could just restore and set my phone up as new, but I do not want to do that as I always prefer to restore from a back up. Given that, is there any way to remove any leftover jailbreak files, folders, settings, etc? I want to do my last backup of my iPhone 7 and restore that backup to my iPhone x when it comes but I don’t want any “jb junk” to come over.

 

[eyoungren]

Like many others, I have pretty much given up on jailbreaking at this point. My iPhone 7 is on 11.0.3 and my iPhone x will be here in less than a week. In preparation for the arrival of my new phone, I’m wondering if there’s anyway to remove all traces/remnants left over from when my phone was still jailbroken.

I know that I could just restore and set my phone up as new, but I do not want to do that as I always prefer to restore from a back up. Given that, is there any way to remove any leftover jailbreak files, folders, settings, etc? I want to do my last backup of my iPhone 7 and restore that backup to my iPhone x when it comes but I don’t want any “jb junk” to come over.

Getting rid of a jailbreak from the device requires a restore. DFU Mode Upgrade/Restore to be exact.

Getting rid of jailbreak data from your backup requires restoring as new.

Cydia stores it's sources and tweak preferences inside your backup and there is no way to tell it not to.

So your choice is either getting rid of all traces of a jailbreak - or not.

Up to you…

 

[psywzrd]

Well that sucks. No way I’m redoing all of my folders, rearranging my apps, etc. Guess I’ll have to just deal with whatever repercussions arise from having jb remnants in my backups moving forward.

 

[eyoungren]

Well that sucks. No way I’m redoing all of my folders, rearranging my apps, etc. Guess I’ll have to just deal with whatever repercussions arise from having jb remnants in my backups moving forward.

Well again, nothing of a jailbreak is stored in your backup. Just tweak preferences and Cydia sources.

The stuff that messes people up is when they jailbreak then update to stock and then have problems when they try to jailbreak later.

It's the remnants of the jailbreak on your device, not in your backup.

Of course the remnants on your device can corrupt a backup so this is one of the reasons I advise against simply upgrading to stock when jailbroken. Always do a backup, DFU restore/upgrade and then restore from the backup.

If you've had no issues with your device in the past then it's unlikely anything in the backup would affect you now.

 

[psywzrd]

@eyoungren: So as long as I do a dfu restore before restoring from a backup, I’m fine?

 

[eyoungren]

@eyoungren: So as long as I do a dfu restore before restoring from a backup, I’m fine?

A DFU Restore/Upgrade will wipe all traces of the jailbreak from the phone.

To eliminate any sources, JB tweak preferences and possible corruption (if you think there is a possibility) you'd need to continue as new.

But if you have no reason to suspect corruption and are ok with Cydia sources and tweak prefs hanging around then restore from your backup after you are done with the DFU process.

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

FWIW I recently went from yalu on iOS10 (SE 64GB) to stock iOS11 on a 128 SE and restored backup via iTunes with few issues. My camera roll got messed up (which I fixed) and a few apps had to be deleted and reinstalled. Other than that fine.

 

[psywzrd]

I don't know why but I thought that there was a way to either access the iphone's file system OR access the backup data to remove anything left over from the jb. I've already restored my iphone x from a backup of my formerly-jailbroken iphone 7 and all seems to be ok, but there's really no way for me to know for sure if something is messed up (battery drain, etc).

 

[eyoungren]

I don't know why but I thought that there was a way to either access the iphone's file system OR access the backup data to remove anything left over from the jb. I've already restored my iphone x from a backup of my formerly-jailbroken iphone 7 and all seems to be ok, but there's really no way for me to know for sure if something is messed up (battery drain, etc).

There are third party apps (Mac/PC) that can give you a limited form of access to your file system when stock as well as some third party apps that can access your backup.

But as far as being able to access everything with impunity, no. Not stock.

 

[psywzrd]

There are third party apps (Mac/PC) that can give you a limited form of access to your file system when stock as well as some third party apps that can access your backup.

But as far as being able to access everything with impunity, no. Not stock.

Gotcha - so I wasn't totally wrong about that. Do any of these apps allow enough access where I can at least go in and delete the Cydia sources and tweak preferences?

 

[eyoungren]

Gotcha - so I wasn't totally wrong about that. Do any of these apps allow enough access where I can at least go in and delete the Cydia sources and tweak preferences?

No idea. I wouldn't even know where to look for that.

I assume if you had one of these apps to browse a backup you could find it but I don't know what these apps are capable of doing. I've just heard they exist.

 

[psywzrd]

Well it looks like iexplorer gives you the ability to explore your phone AND your backups; however, I have no idea where to even begin to look for leftover jb stuff that could potentially cause problems.

Does anyone know what folders, files, etc can be deleted from my backup so that I no longer have any leftover traces from my jailbreaking days?