Apollo-Reborn

iOS tweak for Apollo for Reddit app that lets you continue using Apollo with your own API keys after its shutdown in June 2023. The tweak also unlocks several Ultra features and includes several enhancements and fixes.

Note

Apollo-ImprovedCustomApi is now Apollo-Reborn

May 22, 2026 — This project is now under team-based maintainership to keep Apollo polished and sustainably maintained for the community - join us at r/ApolloReborn!

Apollo Reborn team: @JeffreyCA, @icpryde, @jordanearle, @nickclyde, @DeltAndy123 ❤️

Install

Pre-built IPAs and AltStore Classic/SideStore/Feather sources are now available at apolloreborn.app!

Features

General

• Use Apollo with your own Reddit and Imgur API keys (don't have one?)
• Fully working Imgur integration
• Native Reddit media upload support (images, albums, and videos)
• Liquid Glass icons and UI enhancements for iOS 26+
• Reddit /s/ share links support
• Pixel Pals support on newer iPhone models
• Image viewer and video playback fixes and enhancements
• Proxy Imgur images through DuckDuckGo for regional blocks
• Deep linking support for Steam, YouTube Shorts
• Auto-collapse pinned comments

Unlocked Ultra Features and Easter Eggs

• New Comments Highlightifier
• Saved Categories
• App Icons + Wallpapers (Community Icon Pack, SPCA Animals, Ultra Icons, "sekrit" app icons)
• Pixel Pals (including hidden "Artificial Superintelligence")
• Themes (including hidden "Chumbus" theme)

New Features

• Backup & Restore: Export and import Apollo and tweak settings as a .zip
• Custom Subreddit Sources: Use external URLs for random and trending subreddits
• Recently Read Posts: View all recently read posts from the Profile tab
• Editable Saved Categories: Add, rename, and delete saved post categories (Settings > Saved Categories)
• Bulk in-place translation: Translate posts and comments in-place with configurable provider and target language (Settings > Translation)
• Tap timestamp for creation date: Tap a comment or post's relative-time label to see the absolute creation date and time
• Tag Filters: Blur NSFW and/or Spoiler posts (including titles) in feeds, with per-subreddit overrides (Settings > Tag Filters)
• Inline Media Previews: Render images, GIFs, videos, and Imgur albums inline within posts and comments (Settings > Custom API > Media > Inline Media Previews)
• Rich Link Previews: Render metadata-rich link cards in post bodies and comments (Settings > Custom API > Media)
• User Profile Pictures: Show Reddit user avatars next to usernames in feeds, comments, and user profiles (Settings > Custom API > Media > Show User Profile Pictures)
• Self-hosted Notifications (advanced): Optionally route push registrations, watchers, and inbox checks through your own forked apollo-backend instance instead of having those requests silently dropped (Settings > Custom API > Notification Backend)

Self-hosted notifications (advanced)

The legacy Apollo push backends went dark in June 2023 and are otherwise blocked by the tweak. If you run your own instance of nickclyde/apollo-backend (with your own Reddit OAuth CLIENT_ID / CLIENT_SECRET baked into its env vars), you can set the URL under Settings > Custom API > Notification Backend and the tweak will route all apollopushserver.xyz, beta.apollonotifications.com, and apolloreq.com traffic to that host instead. Leave the field empty to keep the current "silently dropped" behavior.

Important

APNs delivery requires a real aps-environment entitlement, which Apple only grants under a paid Apple Developer team. Free-account sideloads can still register and exercise the watcher CRUD, but push notifications will never actually arrive.

Known Issues

• Long-tapping share links open in the in-app browser

Opening links in Apollo

There are a few ways to open Reddit links in Apollo, depending on your browser and which IPA variant you installed.

Safari — built-in extension (zero setup)

Apollo's bundled "Open in Apollo" Safari extension now works again on sideloaded builds (it previously got stranded on an openinapollo.com interstitial). Enable it under Settings > Safari > Extensions > Open in Apollo, allow it on reddit.com, and Reddit links will open straight in Apollo. Available on the standard and Liquid Glass IPA variants (the extension is removed from the no-extensions variants).

Safari — userscript (works with any variant)

If you installed a no-extensions variant, or you're on a jailbreak/.deb install, use the app-independent userscript instead:

1. Install the free Userscripts app (a Safari extension) and enable it for reddit.com in Settings > Safari > Extensions.
2. Open userscript/open-in-apollo.user.js in Safari, tap the aA menu → Userscripts, and install it.

It auto-redirects Reddit pages to Apollo and rewrites Reddit links on Google/Bing/DuckDuckGo results. (Search-result rewriting is inspired by AnthonyGress's userscript, which also works.)

Any other browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave) — share sheet

Apollo's bundled "Open in Apollo" share-sheet action is fixed in this build and works from any browser: on a Reddit page tap Share → Open in Apollo and it opens straight in Apollo. (This was previously believed impossible — the stock action called the deprecated -[UIApplication openURL:] that iOS 18+ force-fails — but it now opens the link via a non-deprecated path.) Available on the standard and Liquid Glass variants.

⚠️ Depends on how you install. The action runs inside an app extension, which on iOS 26 only launches if your installer sets the appex's main-binary code-signing flag. AltStore and SideStore do this (confirmed), as do Xcode and Apple's codesign (scripts/resign-ipa-codesign.sh re-signs an IPA this way for direct ideviceinstaller/Configurator install). Sideloadly and Feather currently do not — with them the extension is killed at launch and the action silently does nothing. If you installed with one of those, use the Shortcut below; it's signer-independent.

Fallback — "Open in Apollo" Shortcut (works on any install)

A one-time Shortcut does the same thing from the share sheet on any browser. It rewrites the reddit.com URL to Apollo's apollo:// scheme and runs Open URLs — the one launch path iOS always allows from the share sheet (no private APIs; works on any sideload or jailbreak).

Build the "Open in Apollo" shortcut (about a minute)

In the Shortcuts app, create a shortcut named Open in Apollo with these actions, in order:

1. Get URLs from Shortcut Input — coerces the shared link/web page into a URL.
2. Replace Text — Find ^https?://([a-z0-9-]+\.)*reddit\.com, Replace apollo://reddit.com, Regular Expression: On, input = the URLs from step 1.
3. (optional, for redd.it links) Replace Text — Find ^https?://([a-z0-9-]+\.)*redd\.it, Replace apollo://redd.it, Regular Expression: On, input = the Updated Text from step 2.
4. Open URLs — input = the Updated Text from the last Replace Text.

Then in the shortcut's settings (ⓘ) turn on Show in Share Sheet and, under Share Sheet Types, leave only URLs enabled.

Only the scheme + host are rewritten, so the full path/query is preserved — comment permalinks, profiles, and /s/ share links all open correctly (the same apollo://reddit.com/<path> form the Safari extension and userscript produce). To share it with others, open the shortcut → Share → Copy iCloud Link.

Then, in any browser, on a Reddit page tap Share → Open in Apollo.

Don't have an API key?

Important

Reddit and Imgur no longer allow new API key creation so you'll need to share or use existing keys.

See this guide for workarounds (proceed at your own risk).

When using credentials from another app, set the Reddit API Key (OAuth client ID), Redirect URI, and User Agent in the tweak settings to match the app's values. You'll also need to register the redirect URI scheme in the IPA (see below).

More discussion in #82.

Custom Redirect URI

The redirect URI scheme (the part before ://) must be registered in the Apollo IPA's Info.plist under CFBundleURLTypes, otherwise the OAuth callback won't return to Apollo. Add your scheme with patch.sh or the Build IPA GitHub Action:

./patch.sh Apollo.ipa --url-schemes custom

Resulting Info.plist entry:

<key>CFBundleURLTypes</key>
<array>
  <dict>
    <key>CFBundleURLSchemes</key>
    <array>
      <string>twitterkit-xyz</string>
      <string>apollo</string>
      <string>custom</string> <!-- enables custom://reddit-oauth -->
    </array>
  </dict>
</array>

Patching IPA

patch.sh and the Build IPA GitHub Action apply optional patches to a stock Apollo IPA. By default they do not inject the tweak (the Action has an inject_tweak toggle for that) - locally use Sideloadly or build-ipa.sh to inject.

./patch.sh <path_to_ipa> [--liquid-glass | --liquid-glass-icons] [--url-schemes <schemes>] [--remove-code-signature] [-o <output>]

Available patches:

• --liquid-glass - enables the iOS 26 Liquid Glass UI and installs a pack of Liquid Glass icons that can be switched between in the tweak's in-app icon picker. Requires the Git LFS asset to be pulled first (git lfs install && git lfs pull); see the Build note. patch.sh will refuse to run with an un-pulled pointer.
• --liquid-glass-icons - installs the Liquid Glass icon catalog only, without the iOS 26 UI chrome (skips the vtool build-version bump that opts the app into the iOS 26 runtime, so legacy UIKit behaviors like the bottom-tab swipe gesture are preserved). Mutually exclusive with --liquid-glass. Same Git LFS requirement applies.
• --url-schemes <list> - adds comma-separated URL schemes to CFBundleURLTypes (see Custom Redirect URI).
• --remove-code-signature - strips the existing code signature.

To run via GitHub Actions, fork this repo and trigger Actions > Build IPA. It can inject the tweak (inject_tweak), strip extensions (no_extensions), apply Liquid Glass (liquid_glass) or Liquid Glass icons only (liquid_glass_icons), add URL schemes, and remove the code signature in one run, from an Apollo IPA URL.

Sideloadly

Recommended configuration:

• Use automatic bundle ID: unchecked (e.g. com.foo.Apollo)
• Signing Mode: Apple ID Sideload
• Inject dylibs/frameworks: checked - add the .deb via +dylib/deb/bundle
  • Cydia Substrate: checked
  • Substitute / Sideload Spoofer: unchecked

Build Injected IPA Locally

build-ipa.sh builds the tweak .deb and injects it into an Apollo IPA. For this repo's already-injected Apollo-base.ipa, it uses the repo-local scripts/inject-deb-local.sh replacement injector first, so azule/cyan are not required for normal test builds. For a truly stock IPA without the injection scaffold, install azule or cyan; signing/sideloading is still handled by your preferred signer.

make package
./build-ipa.sh --ipa ./Apollo.ipa [--deb ./packages/<tweak>.deb] [-o ./packages/Apollo-Tweaked.ipa]

Distribution

For the in-house four-variant IPA release flow, AltStore Classic/SideStore/Feather source generation, and the meaning of the “No Extensions” builds, see DISTRIBUTION.md. Apollo-Reborn is intended for AltStore Classic, not AltStore PAL.

Build

Requirements:

• Theos

Instructions:

1. git clone https://github.com/Apollo-Reborn/Apollo-Reborn
2. cd Apollo-Reborn
3. git lfs install && git lfs pull (see the note below)
4. git submodule update --init --recursive
5. make package or make package THEOS_PACKAGE_SCHEME=rootless for rootless variant

Important

The prebuilt Liquid Glass asset catalog (liquid-glass/prebuilt/Assets.car) is stored with Git LFS. A plain git clone without git-lfs installed leaves a tiny text pointer in its place instead of the real ~80 MB file, which makes patch.sh --liquid-glass produce a broken IPA that crashes on launch. Run git lfs install (one-time per machine) followed by git lfs pull to fetch the real asset. Verify with git lfs ls-files — a * next to the file means it's present.

Contributors ✨

Thank you to these wonderful people:

Code Contributors

JeffreyCA Maintainer ☕	icpryde Maintainer ☕	jordanearle Maintainer	nickclyde Maintainer	DeltAndy123 Maintainer	EthanArbuckle Code	iCrazeiOS Code
hllvc Code	yodaluca23 Code	ep0chzero Code	mmshivesh Code	Uranosphaerite Code	wdeezy Code	ryannair05 Code
ichitaso Code	epheterson Code	nunoo Code	lampemw Code	rebelancap Code	nackerr Code

Icon & Design Contributors

iGerman00 Design

jryng Design

bajader Design

metalnakls Design

paulo1manso Design

harumatsu Design