When the first iPhone was announced back in 2007, not only did it reinvent the phone, it reinvented apps to become what they are today. However, consider if you’ve downloaded an app on your iPhone and you love it. Then the developers roll out an update and it makes you hate the app and curse yourself for ever having upgraded. How do you downgrade the app without jailbreaking your iPhone? Here’s how…
Yes, you can roll back the app of your choice to the much stable old version that you loved, and frankly, its quite easy to do that. This process is however a lot easier if you’ve not emptied the Recycle Bin/ Trash on your computer since the last time you updated the app. This is because iTunes moves old version of the app to the Trash so that they aren’t unnecessarily eating up your hard drive space. Follow the steps given below to downgrade an iPhone app without jailbreaking it.
Please Note: You will lose any app-specific data once you start the procedure to roll back to the previous version of the app. If this procedure is being done for a game, you’ll end up losing the progress you’ve made on it.
- Backup your device in iTunes.
- Delete the updated app from iTunes, your iPhone, as well as other devices that are syncing with your iTunes profile.
- Try to find the old version of the app in the Recycle Bin/ Trash. The file extension of the particular app is going to be “.ipa”. Considering the fact that you do not have the old version, well, Google is your friend. However, be warned that finding that legitimate .ipa might be a hectic task.
- Copy the .ipa file (preferably) to your desktop.
- Drag the .ipa file into iTunes
- Sync your iPhone with iTunes
And voila! You now have the previous version of the app on your device. However, stay away from the “Update All” button if you do not want to end up in the same situation that brought you to this point in the first place.
Let us know in your comments if you experience any difficulties during this procedure.
Is there any way to downgrade an app without deleting the data of it, without restoring it , & no jailbreaking process?? Because I have a jailbroken iPod Touch 3 and I don’t want to lose all my installous apps by restoring my iPod.