AppDrop

Browse 157,000 archived iOS apps from 2008–2014 and install them on your jailbroken device, with built-in AI search.

💖 Like AppDrop? Tip the dev on PayPal

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Compatibility

• iOS 6.0 – 9.3.6 (armv7 / 32-bit) — fully supported and tested.
• iOS 10.x — confirmed working on iOS 10.3.3 (iPad mini 2, reported by a Reddit user). ipainstaller is broken on iOS 10 (Apple-side dyld regression — silent failures), so AppDrop saves the .ipa to its Documents/AppDrop/ folder instead and you install manually via Filza. From v1.3.1 onwards the save path is configurable, and a "Keep IPA after install" toggle on iOS 6-9 lets you archive a personal collection. Conflicts are auto-resolved with (2), (3), … suffixes instead of overwriting.
• iOS 11+ — not supported. The binary is 32-bit only and Apple dropped 32-bit app support in iOS 11.
• Compatible devices: iPhone 4S, iPad 2 / 3 / 4 / iPad mini, iPod touch 5 (and 64-bit devices like iPad Air / iPhone 5S running iOS 10.3.3 or lower).
• Requires a jailbreak with one of these helper packages installed from Cydia (iOS 6-9 only):
  • IPA Installer Console (by autopear) — most common
  • appinst (ai.akemi.appinst) — newer variant

💡 If you can already install .ipa files on your device (manually or via your jailbreak's file manager — iFile on iOS 5–7, Filza on iOS 8+), you have everything you need.

Features

• 157k vintage app catalog bundled in the IPA — works offline once installed
• AI search — describe an app in any language, the LLM finds it for you
• 7 languages — EN / FR / ES / DE / PT‑BR / JA / ZH‑Hans, auto-detected from your device
• Multi-select install — queue up dozens of apps in one batch
• Cancellable downloads with live progress
• Skeuomorphic iOS 6 UI — fits naturally into your jailbroken device
• No backend, no account, no tracking — talks directly to archive.org and pollinations.ai

Install

Quick path (5 minutes)

1. Verify the helper is installed. Open Cydia, search for IPA Installer Console. If it doesn't say Installed, tap Install.

2. Download the IPA. Grab the latest AppDrop-v*.ipa from the Releases page on your computer.

3. Transfer the IPA to your device. Pick whichever path you have set up:

   • SSH + scp — most reliable, requires the OpenSSH package from Cydia. Default password on a freshly-jailbroken iOS 6+ device is alpine (change it!):

     scp AppDrop-vX.Y.ipa root@<device-ip>:/var/mobile/Documents/

   • USB file manager from your computer — iMazing, iFunbox, 3uTools and similar tools let you browse the device's filesystem over USB and drop files in directly. Works on every supported iOS version.
   • Cloud storage app on the device — Dropbox, Google Drive, Mega, etc. (available from the App Store on iOS 6+). Upload from your computer, download on the device, then open the .ipa in your jailbreak file manager (iFile on iOS 5–7, Filza on iOS 8+).
   • Email attachment — mail yourself the .ipa, open the attachment on the device, "Open in…" → iFile (iOS 5–7) or Filza (iOS 8+).
   • AirDrop — iOS 8 + macOS Yosemite or later only. Works on iPhone 5S / iPad Air / iPad mini 2 and newer running iOS 8 or 9. Not available on iOS 6 or iOS 7 (no Mac ↔ iOS AirDrop in those versions).
   • iCloud Drive — iOS 8+ only, same caveat as AirDrop.

4. Install it. Tap the file in your file manager (iFile / Filza) → choose Installer / Install. Or via SSH:

   ssh root@<device-ip>
   ipainstaller /var/mobile/Documents/AppDrop-v1.0.ipa

5. Done. AppDrop appears on the home screen with rounded corners and the iOS 6 gloss reflection.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Fix
Icon not visible after install	SSH in and run su mobile -c uicache && killall -9 SpringBoard, or just reboot the device.
ipainstaller: command not found	Install IPA Installer Console from Cydia first (step 1).
Echec install : Operation not permitted	Your jailbreak's sandbox blocks posix_spawn — known on some iOS 5 jailbreaks. iOS 6+ is fine.
App crashes on launch	Make sure your iOS is 6.0 or newer. Older iOS isn't supported.

Using AppDrop

The catalog

Browse all 157,000 archived apps. Tap Filters to narrow by iOS version, device, or sort order. Tap Select to enter multi-pick mode for batch installs.

AI search

Tap the AI Chat tab and describe an app in plain language — any of the 7 supported languages works. The LLM identifies vintage titles (Real Racing 3, Asphalt 6, NFS, etc.) and shows them as tappable install cards.

Search

The Search tab lets you find apps by name in real time across all 157k entries — debounce is 150 ms so results stream in as you type. Each row shows the version, minimum iOS, file size and the actual .ipa filename so you can pick the right mirror. Tap a row to open the detail screen and install.

Filters

Narrow the catalog by minimum / maximum iOS version, device class (iPhone, iPad, both), uniqueness (one row per bundle ID), and sort order. Tap a sort row again to flip ascending / descending.

How it works

Catalog metadata          : stuffed18.github.io/ipa-archive-updated
   ↓ pre-built SQLite bundled in the IPA
AI search                 : text.pollinations.ai (anonymous, no key)
   ↓ returns app titles + keywords
IPA download              : http://archive.org/download/X/Y.ipa
   ↓ archive.org → CDN redirect → mbedTLS-bundled HTTPS
Local install             : /usr/bin/ipainstaller path/to/Y.ipa
   ↓
App on home screen ✓

AppDrop downgrades archive.org requests from https:// to http:// to bypass Fastly's JA3-fingerprint blocking on old TLS clients. The CDN node then redirects to HTTPS, and the bundled mbedTLS handles the Let's Encrypt handshake on iOS 6 where the system TLS stack is too old.

Build from source

Requires the Theos cross-compile toolchain on macOS.

git clone https://github.com/AdrienRL1/AppDrop.git
cd AppDrop
export THEOS=$HOME/theos

# One-time: build mbedTLS for armv7 (or use the prebuilt libs in deps/build/)
cd deps && bash build-mbedtls-ios.sh && cd ..

# Build the .ipa and deploy directly to a jailbroken device via SSH
IPAD_IP=192.168.x.x bash build-install.sh

The build script needs sshpass (Homebrew: brew install hudochenkov/sshpass/sshpass) and SSH access (root / alpine by default) to a jailbroken iOS 6+ device.

Architecture

Layer	Technology
UI	Objective-C, UIKit, custom drawRect: skeuomorphic widgets
Networking	Bundled mbedTLS (TLS 1.2) on raw sockets — iOS 6 system TLS can't handshake modern servers
Catalog DB	SQLite (system libsqlite3)
AI	Pollinations.ai (GPT-OSS 20B) with a vintage-iOS expert system prompt
Install	posix_spawn → /usr/bin/ipainstaller
i18n	NSBundle .lproj × 7 langs
Build	Theos (clang armv7)

Privacy

AppDrop runs no analytics, has no account system, sends no telemetry. See PRIVACY.md for the full list of third-party services contacted at runtime.

License

MIT License — use it, modify it, fork it.

Credits

• stuffed18 — public IPA catalog metadata at github.com/stuffed18/ipa-archive-updated
• archive.org — hosting the actual IPA files
• Pollinations.ai — free anonymous LLM endpoint
• mbedTLS — Apache-2.0 TLS library that made HTTPS work on iOS 6
• autopear — ipainstaller, the helper AppDrop delegates to

Disclaimer

AppDrop is a client for publicly-listed archive.org content. The app downloads files that are already available to anyone with a browser. It does not redistribute or host any IPAs itself. Use responsibly — only install software you own or that is freely redistributable (free, archived, homebrew).