by Maureen Cutajar

Created on: December 14, 2010   Last Updated: December 15, 2010

One of iPhone’s most appealing features to its users is surely the myriad of apps available at Apple’s App Store. Want a mobile office suite, an advanced GPS with interactive maps or perhaps you want a smart way to connect to your home or office PC from your iPhone? You can find such apps at the iTunes App Store along with a tremendously vast selection of games, social networking apps, and utilities you may or may not envisage and several other thousands of apps that are organized under twenty different categories at the App Store.

Several of these apps offered at the App Store are free, whereas others come at a fee. Once you download a number of apps to your phone, it is always advised that you back them up, especially since if you accidentally delete an app from your phone, you will have to re-download it again from the app store. Many people ask how they can backup all the apps they downloaded on their phone via the App Store. Although the answer might not be so straightforward, it is extremely simple.

How to back up iPhone Apps

Once you have downloaded apps to your iPhone you can easily back up your downloaded apps by syncing your iPhone to your PC using iTunes. Here are the steps you need to follow to successfully backup all your iPhone apps:

1. Use the USB Cable that came with your iPhone to connect the phone to your computer.
2. Open iTunes and find your iPhone listed on the left-hand menu.
3. Double-click on your iPhone and you will find all the syncing options available on the screen.
4. To backup your apps, click on the Apps tab at the top of the screen.
5. All the apps that are currently installed on your iPhone will be shown on the Apps screen.
6. Ensure that the Sync Apps option at the top left of the screen is checked and then hit the sync button located at the bottom right. Here the iPhone start the syncing process.
7. While the iPhone is syncing to your PC do not use the phone as otherwise the syncing process will be terminated.
8. When the syncing process starts iTunes will ask you whether you want to transfer the apps downloaded on your iPhone to your PC. Click yes and let the syncing process complete.

This completes the process of backing up your iPhone apps to your PC. You can now go to your iTunes Apps Library located at the top of the left-hand menu and all your iPhone apps will be displayed here.

Backing up your iPhone apps is crucial when your iPhone is running out of space. In this manner you can choose which apps you want to carry with you on your phone while others are stored safely on your PC. You can always select which apps to sync back to your iPhone from the Sync Apps screen.

There is just one last thing you need to be aware of. Backing up your apps to your PC does not save the settings of the app. For instance in a game saved games are not saved. If you want to keep your saved games do not delete your apps from the iPhone.

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