Can you safely delete apps from iTunes music folder

ipadiphoneitunes

I realised I was running drastically low on disk space today, and after some poking around found I had 40GB (!) of apps in iTunes.

Now that Apple have sorted out their store so you can re-download without paying etc, can I safely delete this entire folder without losing all my apps? And will the apps currently on my devices (iPad and iPhone) stay there following a sync?

Best Answer

I had a similiar problem when I just bought my new iPad and downloaded a ton load of apps to it.

iTunes saves the downloaded apps as .ipa files on your harddrive, and when I found them I just deleted them, and I've been synchronizing my iPad multiple times after, and havent lost any of my apps on the iPad.

The .ipa's is placed here if you're using windows:

C:\Users\<username>\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Mobile Applications

And here if you are using OS X:

User/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications

Alternatively you can just do this: For windows:

  1. Open iTunes

  2. Go to Library, and press Apps menu

  3. Here you can see all your apps, right click just any if 'em

  4. Press "Show in Windows Explore"

For OS X:

  1. Open iTunes

  2. Go to Library, and press Apps menu

  3. Here you can see all your apps, right click just any if 'em

  4. Click "Show in Finder"

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