Since we posted custom firmware 3.1 links for iPhone 2G/3G and iTouch and also for iPhone 3Gs and iTouch 2G , we got a lot of emails asking us how they can save games progress before they restore their devices.
Fair question, no doubt, but i didnt know the answer since i dont really play games and pretty much dont care if i loose the progress or not. I am not as self-centered as you might think, and i did a little bit of research. Turns out it’s quite easy to do.
What do you need:
- jailbroken device running FW 2.x.x or 3.x.x
- SSH client ( Cyberduck for Mac or WinSCP for Windows )
- AppLinks ( via Cydia )
How to do it:
1 . Install AppLinks from Cydia
2. You will get a new icon on your springboard. Load it , and tap on the curbed arrow at the bottom of your screen. That will create links to all the apps you downloaded from the AppStore.
3. Now SSH into your device to /var/mobile/AppLinks. There you will see a bunch of “links” each of them corresponding to the apps installed on your device
4. Open the folder corresponding to the game you want to save before a update/restore. There you will see a bunch of files and folder. Copy them on your computer.
5. Now update/restore your device and jailbreak.
6. After getting all the apps back, recreate the links with AppLinks ( see step 2 )
7. SSH back to /var/mobile/AppLinks and copy all the files from your desktop back to your computer.
Usually games save their data in “Documents”. Some games use another folder which is located in Library/Preferences under /var/mobile/AppLinks/name.of.application . In this case, you must copy all the contents of the Preferences folder except the com.apple.PeoplePicker.plist. file After the restoration, you should transfer all the components from your computer to the iPhone, in the same location.
If the folder containing your Preferences has only com.apple.PeoplePicker.plist file, then it means that the game in question saves files in a path all its own. You just need to read the names of the files and understand which of these contains the progress of the game.