How to extract contents from a .ipa file (2018)

ios zip unzip ipa
georgexsh picture georgexsh · Sep 20, 2018 · Viewed 16.9k times · Source

Most information found online stated that this could be done with unzip(1), but unfortunately it is not the case anymore, .ipa file format has changed, with unzip -v xyz.ipa:

 Length   Method    Size  Cmpr    Date    Time   CRC-32   Name
--------  ------  ------- ---- ---------- ----- --------  ----
       0  Stored        0   0% 09-18-2018 15:38 00000000  META-INF/
     379  Unk:099     367   3% 09-19-2018 08:44 bf0c5de5  META-INF/com.apple.ZipMetadata.plist
      23  Stored       23   0% 09-19-2018 08:44 132aa79c  META-INF/com.apple.FixedZipMetadata.bin
       0  Stored        0   0% 09-18-2018 15:36 00000000  Payload/
       0  Stored        0   0% 09-19-2018 23:44 00000000  Payload/xyz.app/
       0  Stored        0   0% 09-18-2018 15:36 00000000  Payload/xyz.app/_CodeSignature/
  358128  Unk:099   84505  76% 09-19-2018 23:44 7f51c7bf  Payload/xyz.app/_CodeSignature/CodeResources
   10131  Unk:099    2190  78% 09-18-2018 15:36 90a256db  Payload/xyz.app/Info.plist

for those files with compress method 099, can not be extracted, I guess they are encrypted or encoded with a specifically designed compress method.

the .ipa file is grabbed from app store, you could obtain it via filebin.

How could I get the .ipa file extracted?

Answer

user1376400 picture user1376400 · Sep 20, 2018

Yes i have opened plenty app by changing a .ipa to a .zip it does work then you have to find the payload folder then right click it and choose "Show Package Contents" then you are in the app

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