How To Downgrade Your iPhone and iPod Touch From iOS 6.0.1 ~ Blog O'Nerd

Hello everyone. In my last tutorial last night, I showed you how to upgrade to iOS 6.0.1 and jailbreak, activate and unlock. Now in this tutorial, I will show you how to downgrade from iOS 6.0.1 to any iOS version of your wish (conditions apply). And yeah, this tutorial can be used for downgrading to any other iOS from any other iOS too. Okay? So let's begin.

What this process will do?
After completing this process successfully, you will have your device restored to the iOS version you select. It will be jailbroken, activated and unlocked and it will have its baseband preserved too.

Why should I downgrade from iOS 6.0.1?
Well, it depends on you. You may not like iOS 6.0.1 or you may hate iOS 6.0.1 because its jailbreak is tethered and you need to connect it to your computer every time it needs to be rebooted or you may have any other reason and you may want to come back to the previous iOS version.

Which devices are supported?
iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4th generation for iO 6.0 and 6.0.1 downgrades.

What are the requirements for this process? (read carefully)
The most important requirement is that you must have the shsh blobs for the iOS version you want to downgrade to. If you don't have them, you can not proceed further. If you do not have shsh blobs locally, or don't remember where have you saved them, you can use the below method to grab shsh blobs.

Please note that if you device is brand new and came with pre-installed with iOS 6.0 or 6.0.1, it is obvious that you won't have the shsh for any previous iOS version and there is no way you can grab them. So this process is not for you.

If you have already saved shsh, skip the below step and move to the Step 1.

How to grab shsh blobs using TinyUmbrella? (it is the easiest method)

Download and run the latest TinyUmbrella.
Connect your device to computer.
Click connected device in.
Go to Advanced tab.
Activate the "Request SHSH From Cydia" option. (if it is unchecked)
Make sure "Save ALL Available SHSH" option is selected too.
Then click Save SHSH button. Wait for the process to complete. It will save all shsh available for your device from Cydia and Apple.
Once the process is over, go to C:/Users/User name/.shsh directory and see if the shsh file for the iOS version you want to downgrade to is present there. The file name looks like this - XXYYXXYYYYXX-iphone2,1-5.0.1.shsh. Where XXYY is the unique ECID of your device, iphone2,1 is your device model, and 5.0.1 is the version of the iOS you want to downgrade to.
If the shsh blob for the iOS you want to downgrade to is not present there, then you are out of luck and can not downgrade to that iOS version.
You can still process to downgrade to another version for which you have shsh blobs.

Okay, so once you have the shsh blobs saved, you can proceed further.

Note : Some old screen shots are used in this tutorial so save space. They are for reference and it does not affect the process at all.

How to Downgrade your iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 or iPod touch 4th generation from iOS 6.0.1?
Step 1
Downloading and preparing everything.
Download IPSW of the iOS version you want to downgrade to (if you don't have it) for your device. You can download IPSW for your device using the direct download links from Blog O'Nerd Downloads. Click here to download IPSW.
Download sn0wbreeze. Click here to download.
Download and install latest iTunes.

Step 2
Run sn0wbreeze.
The home screen looks like this:

Click OK. Read the information on the next page and click Next button.

Step 3
Click Browse for an IPSW button and browse to the directory where the IPSW is located, and select it. If your device is iPhone 3GS, it will ask you if it is old bootrom or new bootrom. If you know it, select the appropriate option. If you are unsure about it, select New Bootrom.

Step 4
Click iFaith Mode option on the next screen. It will ask you to browse for the iOS version you selected recently (the version you are downgrading to). So go to the C:/Users/User name/.shsh directory or anywhere else you have saved the shsh blobs and select the appropriate blob.

sn0wbreeze may now show a window with some geeky text. Just close it. After it finishes processing the blob you provided, it will show you the next screen.

Step 5
Click General option and click the next button.

On the next screen, you can chose to hactivate your iPhone. If you do not have the official SIM of your iPhone, you should check the Activate iPhone [hactivate] box. If you want to increase root partition space, provide it in MB under Root Partition Size. Click Next.

The next screen is for selecting any packages that you want to include in your IPSW. So when you restore using it, you will have these packages already installed with it.
If you want your IPSW to have any packages pre-installed, you can select them now.
Once you are done or if you do not wish to add any packages, click Next.

Step 6
Click on Build IPSW and click Next.

Now sn0wbreeze will start building IPSW.

Once sn0wbreeze completes building custom IPSW, it can guide you to enter Pwned DFU mode. This is important because you must enter Pwned DFU in order to restore using any custom IPSW. So click OK and follow the onscreen steps to enter Pwned DFU mode.

Step 7
Restoring using the IPSW. (the actual downgrade process)

Once your device is successfully in Pwned DFU mode, you can restore using the custom IPSW you created.

Open iTunes. It will tell you that your device is in recovery mode and needs to be restored. Click OK.

Now press and hold shift key on your keyboard and click Restore button. Now release the shift key and browse to the custom IPSW. It should be on your desktop. Its name will look like this - 00XXYYXX0XXYYXYX_sn0wbreeze_iPhone_3GS-5.0.1-9A405_signed Select the custom IPSW and let the restore process finish.

Step 8
Unlocking your iPhone.
Once the restore process is finished, you can proceed to unlock your iPhone. If it is iPhone 3GS with baseband 5.13.04 or previous, you can use ultrasn0w. If it is iPhone 4 with baseband 01.59.00, you can use ultrasn0w. If it is iPhone 3GS or 4 with any other baseband other than mentioned, you can not use ultrasn0w to unlock it. You must use SIM interposer such as Gevey SIM.

Method 1 : ultrasn0w
If your iPhone meets the baseband requirement for ultrasn0w as mentioned above, then open Cydia. Let it finish some first run process (if it does) then search for ultrasn0w and install it. Reboot your iphone and it should be now unlocked.

Method 2 : SIM interposer
If you need to use Gevey SIM or R-SIM, follow the steps mentioned by the manufacturer.

Method 3 : Unlocking using saved SAM Unlock tickets.

If you unlocked using the SAM unlock method in the past, and ONLY if you have backed up the Lockdown folder, you can now use it to unlock your iPhone. To do so, follow the below steps:

Open Cydia and install SAM.
Now open SAM and click Revert Lockdown to stock.
Close SAM and connect your iPhone to your computer.
Use an iPhone browser like DiskAid and browse to the /var/root/Library and delete the Lockdown folder there.
Now copy the Lockdown folder you backed up to /var/root/Library. If you used redsn0w to backup Lockdown, you will have the folder in .zip format so unzip it and then copy the Lockdown folder to /var/root/Library/ on your iPhone.
Reboot your iPhone. Open SAM and disable it.
Reboot your iPhone again and you should see signal bar soon.

Okey dokey. Your device is now downgraded from iOS 6.0.1, it is jailbroken, activated (if selected) and unlocked.

This is it folks, this was the tutorial on how to downgrade from iOS 6.0.1.

If you liked this tutorial, if this tutorial helped you and if you think it will help others as well, then please share it using the share buttons below.

Until next time, bye!

Related tutorial - How To Jailbreak, Activate and Unlock iOS 6.0.1 While Preserving Baseband Using sn0wbreeze