Unjailbreak an iPhone

So you’ve decided that you want to reverse the jailbreak on your iPhone, no big deal. All jailbreaks are reversible, but what most users don’t know is that you can easily unjailbreak an iPhone by using the Restore functionality within iTunes, and then you can restore your apps, contacts, and iPhone customization to the device as well. This process is the same to undo a jailbreak on an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or even an Apple TV. We’re covering the iPhone here as an example, but it’s the same for all devices and all iOS versions.

Undoing a jailbreak is a two-stage process that requires iTunes, a USB cable, and a Mac or Windows computer, you won’t lose any of your data except for the Cydia apps and anything related to the jailbreak itself (which is why you are undoing the jailbreak in the first place, right?). If you don’t have a backup to restore to, you can still undo the jailbreak, but you won’t be able to get your stuff back – that’s one of many reasons why it’s so important to regularly make backups of your iOS devices.

How to Unjailbreak an iPhone

It is a simple process to undo a jailbreak on an iPhone (or iPod touch and iPad). Here are the exact steps to unjailbreak and then restore your iPhones data:

1. Connect the jailbroken iPhone to your computer and open iTunes
2. In the left iTunes column, select your iPhone
3. Under the Summary tab, you’ll see a ‘Restore’ button – click this to start the unjailbreak process



4. A message will pop up asking if you’d like to backup your iPhone, click yes and let the backup and restore process go
5. Your iPhone will automatically restart itself when it is finished restoring, you will then be asked if you want to restore from backup – click Yes if you want to restore all your non-jailbreak related apps and iPhone customization to the iPhone
6. When the backup and restore is complete, your jailbreak has been reversed and your iPhone is no longer jailbroken!

This process works the same on every single iPhone model ever made, from iPhone 5S, iPhone 5, 4S, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch, all iPad models, and regardless of what version of iOS the device is running. You can undo jailbreaks from iOS 7.1.1 or iOS 4, it doesn’t matter which, just simply restoring from the most recent backup does the job and reverses the jailbreak.

If you ever want to redo the jailbreak, be sure to find the newest jailbreak available here, always back up the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch before beginning, and understand the potential risks involved in performing a jailbreak. As always, regardless of what jailbreak tool you use, you’ll find that reversing all of these is just as simple as any other unjailbreak process.

Note: If you have created custom IPSW firmware packages with something, you will need to select a fresh IPSW file to restore to instead of the customized IPSW that was created by the tool you used to make the custom firmware. You can download iPhone firmware & IPSW files from Apple’s servers, we always have the latest IPSW links available here so just check to be sure you get the iOS firmware version you are looking for, appropriate to your device.