Deleting ipa files.

[JorjLim]

Hello Forum

Here's a question:

To save room on a mac or pc, could I delete all the ipa files from iTunes, and then resync my iOS device.

Would I lose all the apps on my iOS device? or would it copy the apps from the iOS device back to iTunes.

The reason ask this is because I have GBs of apps but I don't use them all, but obviously I want local copies of all the apps I do actually use.

Any thoughts?

 

[Fausty82]

There's a folder on the Mac called Mobile Applications in the iTunes / iTunes Media folder structure that contains the *.ipa files. I believe that removing them will also cause the apps to be uninstalled from your device but I don't know that for sure ... I suppose that you could copy off the ones that you don't use to a CD/DVD or other offline storage and just keep the ones that you still used.

Interestingly, I had an issue with an update to one app very early on in my iPhone experience... and actually have kept all old versions of the *.ipa files since that time... every time I update an app, I move the old version from the trash bin to a network location to keep in case I need to fall back to a previous version of an app.

I suspect that the location of the files is the same on a PC, if that's your preference.

 

[JorjLim]

Yay

I believe that removing them will also cause the apps to be uninstalled from your device but I don't know that for sure

Seems that the apps sync back from the iPad.

 

[Fausty82]

Seems that the apps sync back from the iPad.

That's good to know.