Hello everyone. During mobile application assessments, we often need the IPA file for static analysis. However, on iOS 18+ devices, many apps cannot be installed on jailbroken devices, which prevents us from obtaining the IPA directly.
In this short guide, I’ll show a simple method to extract an IPA from a non-jailbroken iOS device using Apple Configurator.
mkdir ~/Desktop/ipa_tmp/Run the following command before installing the app via Configurator:
while true; do
find ~/Library/Group\ Containers/K36BKF7T3D.group.com.apple.configurator/Library/Caches/Assets/TemporaryItems/MobileApps/ -name "*.ipa" -exec cp {} ~/Desktop/ipa_tmp/ \;
sleep 0.3
doneThis script continuously monitors the temporary directory where Apple Configurator briefly stores downloaded IPA files and instantly copies any detected IPA to ~/Desktop/ipa_tmp/.
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Don’t worry about “No such file or directory” error.
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While the app is being downloaded and installed, the IPA file will temporarily appear in Configurator’s cache directory.
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The monitoring script will automatically copy it to:
~/Desktop/ipa_tmp/You should now see the IPA file available for static analysis.
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