Whenever the iPhone backs up to your Mac, iTunes copies certain files to your computer. These include your settings files, from the preferences library, and databases, such as your calls, notes, bookmarks and so forth.
Files synced from your iPhone are stored in a backup folder in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup. Each folder in this directory represents one iPhone or iPod touch that has been synced to your computer. An Info.plist file in each folder tells you which folder corresponds to which device. Manifest.plist contains an encoded manifest, a list of those files backed up by iTunes along with info like their digital signature, size, permissions and so forth.
Along with Info.plist and Manifest.plist, you'll find several to many backup files using the mdbackup extension. These mobile device backup files contain semi-encrypted versions of all the backed up files.
You can examine the contents of these files and extract the backed up data from them using my mdhelper utility. It's a command-line Mac-based application that scans through these folders and allows you to extract files. For example, to recover all the png images from your backups, you could issue mdhelper -C png. Run the utility without arguments to see the built-in options.
What mdhelper does is this. It locates all backup folders. It reads in the Info.plist and Manifest.plist files and it lets you extract manifests and files based on a variety of search options. It stores extracted data on your desktop in a recovered iPhone files folder.
Pop back on Monday to learn more about backup files and how to force your iPhone to backup and restore from the Mac command line.
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Thanks for the info lost my notes data while upgrading from 1.14 to 2.0.1 on my iphone using pwng. tried using the mdhelper tool but my knowledge seems lame as i get permissions denied while trying to launch mdhelper on the command line mode in terminal. Have logged as administrator in my macbook.. launching using ./mdhelper ( my knowledge of the mac is pretty low)
Make it executable: chmod 755 mdhelper
Is the mdhelper util no longer available? I get a 404 error...
Please bring this tool back...iphone overwrote all my computers bookmarks and I have an iphone backup with my bookmarks. I need this tool desperately!
You can find the tool at .
Please bring back the mdhelper.
Its on ericasadun.com/ftp/Macintosh/
Regards, Martin Cleaver.
Can't seem to run it even with changing chmod 755. What system is it compiled for? Possible corruption via the web download? - Could you rar, tar, or zip it?
Hoping that I can run it!
-Allen
Erica- wow, that was fast. Thank you for the zip copy. I found the github source also... looks like I figured out why it's not working. "cannot execute binary"- it was compiled for 10.5. :) If you want, and if it's not specific to 10.5, I can compile it for you on 10.4. However, the compile complained about a dependency in the 10.5 sdk.
It turns out the files I'm looking for may not be in the mdbackup files... another tool "mobilesync inspect" isn't finding the files inside the mdbackups.
In particular, I'm looking for epubs that were in an older version of Stanza. The latest version completely erased my library. Not too much of a problem, as I can get all the files back- but it is a pain. Stanza.app, BTW, keeps it's epubs inside the application folder on the iphone unzipped... if you can get to them (ssh etc.), you can download them, zip them, change their file suffix to epub, and you've got a backup you can actually do something with.
But, I can't currently find it within the mdbackups with the other tool...
Thanks for your tool and kind help! I never knew it was possible to delve into the mdbackup files! :)
My best!
-Allen
I figured it out. A bit tricky, but the Stanza library is indeed backed up, and it can be retrieved with a bit of elbow grease. I have a description of how to accomplish it on my blog:
http://tinyurl.com/cebyb2
I didn't end up using your tool, Erica, only because I wasn't able to run it. I'll have to update my blog post with links to your blog posts, as the info they contain is fantastic!
Cheers!
-Allen