Is it possible to copy a previous app version from one device to another?

[gwynne]

Tried googling and searching the forum, I think terms are too vague and things have changed only in the last couple of years, so I get a lot of hits that don't apply.

One of my most-used apps rolled out an update that breaks everything.

Device A (iPad mini 11.4) still has the unbroken version.

Devices B (iPad) and C (iPhone), also probably in the 11.3, 11.4 realm, have the crappy broken version.

In the past, solving this would have been trivial (grab the non-broken .ipa from iTunes library backup of Device A, delete bad version from devices B and C, install older .ipa through iTunes.

This is not a jailbroken/cracked or paid app (it's a to-do list program with in-app purchases). It's a valid install linked to the same iTunes account on all devices. I just want the slightly older, functional version until they fix it.

Is this possible anymore? Will I need a jailbreak? (Stopped jailbreaking a long time ago.) I tried with an OSX app called imazing, seems like a no-go. It'll let me make a backup of the non-broken app, but not actually deploy it to Device B/C.

Thanks in advance, sorry if this comes up a lot.

 

[redheeler]

You should be able to accomplish this with Apple Configurator, which is free for Mac.

 

[gwynne]

You should be able to accomplish this with Apple Configurator, which is free for Mac.

Thanks, but both Apple Configurator 2 and 'iMazing' only seem to want to install apps to devices B/C by having me log into my iTunes account (in which case I assume they will grab current/broken version). They won't let me (or I can't figure out how to) extract the functional version from Device A.

Both apps aggressively want to backup the devices they are working with, but so far I can't figure out where either stores the backups.

 

[Minorite]

Sorry man, .ipa extraction was killed in iOS 9. iTunes 12.6 and lower just downloaded the .ipa from AppStore repo, but not extracted it from the device. Now you can back up only apps data.

iMazing gives you an option to downgrade apps version if you have the .ipa, but you need to grab it from iTunes Mobile Applications folder or download it with iMazing while it's still on the AppStore. The optimal solution is to keep a version history of important .ipa files so you could downgrade if needed.