There are many reasons why one would want to delete an app from their phone. I like to periodically clean up my app library and get rid of apps that I haven’t used in a while and don’t plan on using anytime soon. It keeps my phone visually organized and prevents me from having to scroll through dozens of apps.
Deleting apps from your iPhone is also a great way to free up space and keep your phone running smoothly.
How to Delete Apps on iPhone
Step 1: Long press the app you want to remove
On your iPhone’s home screen or in your app library, long-press the app you want to remove until a menu appears. The app library is the list of all your apps accessible when you swipe left on your home screen.
When you press and hold an app on the home screen, this menu appears with options Image: Maria Diaz/ZDNet
Step 2: Select Delete App or Delete App
If you’re on your home screen, select Delete app from the menu that appears. The iPhone will then give you the option to remove the app completely or just delete it from your home screen while keeping it in your app library.
If you try to remove an app from your app library, you’ll just be asked to confirm if you want to remove it.
Step 3: Confirm deletion
In the pop-up window that appears, select Delete app in red to confirm the removal of the app from your phone.
When you delete an app, you can redownload it later and sign in again, but any information that isn’t connected to your sign-in account is also deleted. Thus, if you are not logged into an account on an application, such as a game for example, you will lose all progress.
Also read: How to clear your iPhone cache (and why you should)
The App Library on your iPhone is where all your apps are. This is the list of all apps currently installed on your iPhone. You can access your app library by swiping left on your home screen, and you can use the search bar at the top to quickly search through apps.
There’s a way to remove apps you don’t use often without losing the data associated with them. You can do this by offloading, which is basically uninstalling an app to free up storage space on your iPhone, without deleting data and information from it. To offload an application, do the following:
- Go to Settings
- Go to General
- Select iPhone Storage
- Choose the application to download
- Press on Download the app
You can also have your iPhone automatically offload unused apps when it runs out of storage space.
Sometimes you delete apps on your iPhone just to see them reappear on your screen a few days later like some kind of nightmare. If this happens to you, you probably need to check that your App Store hasn’t enabled automatic downloads, here’s how:
- Go to Settings
- Picking out App store
- Press the Automatic downloads toggle to turn it off
If you’ve ever deleted an app from your iPhone, you might have seen it in the list of purchased apps in your account in the App Store. Any apps you’ve ever downloaded with your Apple ID will show up here, deleted ones show a cloud icon next to them because they’re no longer on your device.
How can you remove these old apps from your Apple account? Just swipe left and a Hide option appears, tap it and it will be removed from your account and while it won’t entirely remove the app from your purchase history, at least it won’t be downloaded again in five years when you sync your iPhone.
Deleting your apps on your iPhone will not delete any data saved on your iCloud. If you want to delete app data and information from your iCloud backup, you need to go to iCloud settings.
- Go to Settings
- Tap your name to access Apple ID and iCloud settings
- Go to iCloud
- Select Manage storage space
- Press on Backups
- Choose the iPhone whose app you deleted
- Find the app in the list (select Show all apps if necessary)
- Disable app
If you’re trying to delete an app and your iPhone won’t let you, you may have a restriction on what you can do with iTunes and App Store purchases. To resolve this issue, go to:
- Settings
- Select screen time
- Press on Content and Privacy Restrictions
- Picking out iTunes and App Store purchases
- Check the permissions you have to install and remove apps and in-app purchases. Make sure Deleting apps is set to Allow.