Now, that you know you have been finding some really cool iPhone Apps, both free and paid you may notice that your iPhone Dashboard is probably 5-6 pages long or even more if you get app-happy.
With the free jailbreak app Categories (available via Cydia), now you can organize your iPhone Apps in folders. With Categories, now my iPhone dashboard is just 2 pages. And that’s way better than the 7 pages I had before and it was pain to arrange them in any particular order or to quickly find the app I wanted to use.
![categories3 Organize Your iPhone Apps with Categories [jailbreak app]](http://www.topiphoneresource.info/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/categories3.jpg "categories3")
If you have already jailbroken your iPhone, all you’d need to do is find Categories in Cydia and install it.
If you haven’t jailbroken your iPhone yet, no worries. We have a How to Jailbreak iPhone 2.1 Firmware with QuickPwn guide that could help you do it easily. I did mine in under 20 minutes and it was very straightforward.
Once you have it installed via Cydia, Categories lets you create folders and assign any icon of your choice from a wide variety of icon collection as shown below.
![categories5 Organize Your iPhone Apps with Categories [jailbreak app]](http://www.topiphoneresource.info/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/categories5.jpg "categories5")
You can see the folders I have created in the below picture. To add more categories, just press the Add button in the top right corner.
![categories2 Organize Your iPhone Apps with Categories [jailbreak app]](http://www.topiphoneresource.info/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/categories2.jpg "categories2")
To add Apps into a Category you have created, just touch the category name and you will get an empty screen with an Add button in the top right corner. Now touch the add button and you will see a list of all the apps installed in your iPhone. All you need to do is tap the apps that you want added in the folder.![categories6 Organize Your iPhone Apps with Categories [jailbreak app]](http://www.topiphoneresource.info/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/categories6.jpg "categories6")
Once you have organized your apps to your liking in different folders, you may wish to rearrange some apps to a different folders. Just go in to the category and tap on the edit button on the top left corner. Now just delete the apps you don’t want in this folder.
![categories7 Organize Your iPhone Apps with Categories [jailbreak app]](http://www.topiphoneresource.info/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/categories7.jpg "categories7")
Here is how it looks after I have organized my apps into the following categories: News, Notes, Fun, Webclip (videos), Music, Games, Showtime (movies), Food, Finance, etc.
![categories8 Organize Your iPhone Apps with Categories [jailbreak app]](http://www.topiphoneresource.info/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/categories8.jpg "categories")
I think jailbreaking my iPhone is worth just for the convenience of using Categories to organize my Apps. What do you think?
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Tags: cydia, free apps, how to, iPhone App Reviews, jailbreak
Theres another big reason to jailbreak the iphone:cycorder and snapture. They are great apps that won´t be accepted in the appstore.With categories, you can keep your icons organized, and it looks great on your iphone!
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iphone 3gs last blog post..VideoRecorder and snapture finally ported to Iphone 2.0!
Thanks for the info – I’ve been looking for something like this (I’m an iphone newbie!)
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skin beauty basicss last blog post..Sensitive Skin Care, the Basics
hello
i have fun with your software categories.
just one question:
how is it possible to involve the self created links on the desktop of the iphone from the internet?
thanks for your feedback.
greetings
andreas schneider
Andreas, thank you and glad you are enjoying it. Do you mean bookmarks to websites? You can easily do that when you are in a site in Safari by using the ‘+’ button and add it to ‘Home Screen’. Hope this helps.
I have a 3G and have had an iPhone since it’s release. I loved having catagories. I have not jailbroken my 3G yet but decided today to try again (last week I failed, all went well until I got stuck on apple logo). Anyway, my whole reason for jailbreaking is Catagories.
i’m having some difficulties while using the categories .. While there are some applications in the created folder by categories, i restored the iphone and the applications are gone and i can not re install them via ITunes. They’re still using some space but invisible . How can i bring them back ?
Hi
I am using categories and it is grate
But I have a question please:
If I have for example a file call “app”
And inside the file categories there is 5 application.
Now, there is an upgrade to my application, what happened when I have an
Upgrade from the store and the application is not on the screen, the application is
Inside the category file name
Is the application will be upgrade ?
What will happen ?
Should I do something before upgrading the application ?
Thanks for your answer ( can you answer to my mail please… )
[...] Cydia & Installer. Some of the things you can get with jailbreaking are Record video in iPhone, Categories, Backgrounder, Quickgold, Winterboard Themes, Podcaster, etc. Check out our jailbreaking how-to [...]
Careful Categories can really mess up your phone if you don’t uninstall correctly. I’m on my second restore now!!! Make sure you delete your folders before you uninstall don’t assume it will do this on it’s own.
This app (categories) constantly crashes and is almost unusable.
I can barely get a folder made, and it crashes while choosing icon or after I select the second or third app for that folder…
By crash, I mean iPhone locks up and have to do complete reboot….
Any ideas?
Who can I contact for customer support?
@AB2 — same for me, but I’m almost done getting everything organized. I think it’s worth it to tough through it, and wait for an update. I’ve researched extensively, and have been unable to find a fix at this point.
I still love this though!
I installed categories and I didn’t do any research before doing so. I had to reset my iphone back to it’s original settings and failed to take apps back out of folders. I re-jailbroke it and all apps in folders are not there, some very important. I tried to re-install and they wont come back still. I need help.Thanks.
Rod
Rodney:
You will have to reset the iPhone back to factory settings, like when you first purchased it.
Then, resync and install apps from beginning.
I would suggest NOT using the category app. Far too unstable.
I have since found a five column springboard plug in that allows 20 apps per page, from SOSiPhone repository
yes, i too had the SAME problem rodney!! for those of you that are considering categories, consider wisely. it is slow and takes time to load. and if you put anything of importance in those folders you may just lose them. heres what happened to me:
i thought this app was super helpful, cleaning up my springboard (which it was) however it always took awhile to load. but i am patient, so i thought that was ok. i made several folders, one for games, one for apps, one for SETTINGS. that there was my mistake. I had so many settings apps i decided to make a folder for them with categories. so, when I was using ‘fontswap’ (a really cool cydia app) (which was in my settings folder) something just got overloaded somewhere because everytime i clicked on a app, it would do nothing. so, i figured no biggie. i’ll just go to ‘bossprefs’ and restart my springboard… oh, wait a sec ‘bossprefs’ is in my SETTINGS category. which i can’t access. so I attempt to turn off my itouch and turn it back on again, SHIT. now, its stuck at the freakin pineapple and stays there all nite. so I recovered it today, but when I restored from back up, EVERYTHING that was in my “categories” was erased. and i mean EVERYTHING. so i no longer even had the plain old ‘apple’ settings!!! you can’t just re-download those, either. so, with only a couple of apps left on my entire ipod, (videos, photos EVEN music GONE, not even an APP anymore!!!) I make the executive decision to restore completely, not from back up just start all over. so i did. now i have a new, start from scratch ipod. it sucks, i lost it all, even all my passwords in my passwords app. i just jailbroke again tho, cause it is just so awesome despite the shady unstable programs. i’ll just be way more careful this go around. : ) good luck all, and please use precaution with any apps that mess with your other apps!!
I downloaded categories a few weeks ago. When i updated my software, it deleted all my folders and everything that i put in them. Now i dont have alot of my apps and i cant get ANY OF THEM back
(
It deleted my “settings” app also! WHAT DO I DO???
I DOWNLOADED THE CATEGORIES APP A FEW WEEKS AGO.
I UPLOADED MY SOFTWARE TO 2.2.1 AND IT DELETED ALL OF MY FOLDERS.
NOW I DONT HAVE ALOT OF MY APPS AND I CANT REDOWNLOAD THEM!!
WHAT DO I DO???
IT DELETED MY “SETTINGS” APP ALSO… :[[
Hey to everyone that lost their apps in a restore. Download SBSETTINGS from Cydia.
Open it and click the icon on the bottom right that says POOF.
ALL YOUR APPS WILL BE ON THAT LIST..
Turn them all on…
And you’re done
Contace me if you need help
AIM perduetdeprime
jheald1218@aol.com
Love to help.
ANY iPhone questions let me know
If you upgraded a Jailbroken iPhone to 3.0 and are missing icons for apps you put in categories then go to SETTING then GENERAL then RESTRICTIONS enable the restrictions and then disable the restrictions and that should bring back your icons for your apps!
Thanks for the quick & useful tip, Brian!
Thanks for the great tip, Brian. Worked like a charm.
Hi,
I have the same problem as a few of the other posts here in that I upgraded to 3.0 and most of my apps are no longer visible on the Springboard, including SETTINGS. So I can’t apply the fix proposed by Brian.
I did successfully install SBSettings, but it does not show up on the Springboard either, so I can’t apply the fix proposed by John.
So it looks as if I’m stuck! Is my only option to Restore to factory settings and re-install all my apps and music? It’s not the end of the world if I do have to do that, but just trying to investigate all other options first…
Any help offered will be much appreciated!
I have managed to solve this issue.
I didn’t know how to launch SBSettings. When I worked out that it can be launched by touching the WiFi icon at the top of the screen it was then very simple to un-hide all the missing applications.
So all solved without the need to restore the factory defaults. A lot of time saved!
Big thanks John for the solution!!!
One small problem remains is that after re-installing Categories it does not appear to work on 3.0. I guess it will be updated at some point.
yup, my folders are all gone as well. I just downloaded a update from the app store for an app that I had placed in my categories folder… now the icon is frozen and I can’t even delete it. I have 3.0 and so I can not get Cydia on my iPhone. WEAK. Super weak. So thanks for the suggestion John, but it was in March, and it is now damn near July and all of us with 3.0 are facing this. So, if there are any suggestions other than buying a new iPhone…I am minutes from doing that…I would like to hear it. Thank you much.
Brian thanks for the settings tip an easy fix it brought Cydia back for me.
Another easy fix — Categories simply HIDES your icons. If you lost access to categories, your programs are still there, simply hidden. Swipe left from your home screen to Searchlight and type in the name of the program you want to access. It should come right up and you can launch it from searchlight.
Thank you Brian for the fix.
Brian,
I was having the same problem. Mine was compounded by the fact that I had gone from a 3G with 2.21 OS to a new 3GS with OS 3.0. I did what you described and all my missing apps reappeared. Thanks for the tip.
Hi there!
Thanks, I was really looking for sth like this.
However, I did not succeed in instaling it. The message that comes is “Couldn’t configure pre-depend dpkg for grep, probably a dependency cycle”. Could you help me with this?
@Brian – thanks, this worked perfectly:
“If you upgraded a Jailbroken iPhone to 3.0 and are missing icons for apps you put in categories then go to SETTING then GENERAL then RESTRICTIONS enable the restrictions and then disable the restrictions and that should bring back your icons for your apps!”
Thank you John for your tip it worked perfectly…your a savior!!
Jason, glad to be of help! Thanks for visiting and hope to see you soon here.
@ Brian: Thank you you so much! Worked perfectely for my?
I recently upgraded my 2g to 3.0. Installed categories, but it crashes – i mean it doesn’t even start!! Tried re-installing, re-booting, but to no avail. I just see the categories screen and back it goes to the springboard. Any issues with 3.0? I really want to try this app..
[...] restrictions and then disable the restrictions and that should bring back your icons for your apps!How to get your app icons back after upgrading iPhone firmware. This entry was written by hal and posted on 2009-08-24 at 18:44 and filed under Url. Bookmark the [...]
Priyanka,
Have you updated Categories to the current version from Cydia? Also, I recommend you check out the past comments in this post as there are many useful tips.
Great App, I’ve been using it since the firsts versions, and the improvement is awesome. The “memory” indicator and the “respring needed” are great (why don’t all apps have it?)
However, I found a “bug” in Categories, that I can’t find a fix or workaround. I have 2 apps called (internally, the Icons have different names) “Domino”. when I put one in a category and respring, the second dissappears from the list. It’s on the desktop, but unavailable for me to pick it in categories.
If I put both apps in one category, 2 copies of the same app appear in the category, and one app remains outside the categories. And If I try to put the apps in different categories, after I put the first app in the first category, the second dissapears from the list.
Is there a way to rename this apps and keep them working?
thanks.
Damian.
Thank you John for your tip it indeed worked perfectly…your a savior!
John says:
May 18, 2009 at 4:38 pmHey to everyone that lost their apps in a restore. Download SBSETTINGS from Cydia.
Open it and click the icon on the bottom right that says POOF.
ALL YOUR APPS WILL BE ON THAT LIST..
Turn them all on…
And you’re done
Contace me if you need help
AIM perduetdeprime
jheald1218@aol.com
Love to help.
ANY iPhone questions let me know
THANK U THANK U THANK U – I have been trying for days to get my apps back and it was so simple once you knew how. Thanks again mate
I wasn’t very smart… I had all of my apps nice and organized. Then I created a jailbreak folder and that’s where it went wrong… I put categories in the folder (removing it from my springboard) and everything was great! Then one day I updated my software so it restored my iPhone (removing jailbreak). It didn’t give my apps back! I tried re jailbreaking it, but it didn’t have the categories folders so I couldn’t take the apps out of the hidden springboard because my categories thing was hidden too! Pplease help me! I need my apps!
Thankyou!!!! I owe you!
I downloaded the categories app and basically placed everything into folders, except sms and phone icon. I even placed cydia in a folder as well, I have a 2g phone still working on 2. sumthing software. My prob is i can not get to any off the apps in the folders at all Ive tried everything, Im stuck how do i get rid of this problem
[...] Jailbreak app Categories has let jailbreak iPhone users enjoy this freedom for a long time but if you don’t have a jailbroken iPhone, you can also enjoy this atleast with the Utilities app. [...]
[...] might have had Categories jailbreak app installed on your jailbroken iPhone to organize apps neatly. Sometimes after a firmware upgrade, [...]
Another big thanks to Brian. I had some games with seveal hours invested and I thought I was going to lose them all.
[...] you have a jailbroken iPhone you might have tried to address this issue with the excellent Categories app. The introduction of Spotlight feature that made the jailbreak QuickGold app obsolete in iPhone OS [...]
I had the same problem….I was able to bring the apps icon back disabling/enabling the restriction setting…but my problem is that I can’t launch those apps anymore…everytime I click on the app icon, it tries to launch then disappears…I already tried to uninstall and reinstall via itunes but no luck..Please help!!
Just blackra1ned my 3.0.1 iPhone (so now on 3.1.2)and “lost” all apps within Categories.
To restore the apps: SBSettings/More/Hide Icons and then turn them all on again and the apps will re-appear. All categories are empty though.
[...] Categories: Organize your apps in folders. I don’t think I need to say anymore, but here is a link with more details. http://www.topiphoneresource.info/organize-your-iphone-apps-with-categories-jailbreak-app/ [...]
Thanks Brian for the tip…worked flawlessly!!!!
Please!!! Help me! I putted ALL my aps on 1 folders including ctegories and its all gone… What do i should do to take the folder back to
My front page??? Please tell
Me!