How to Delete Apps on iPhone—Permanently! (iOS 16)

By Cullen Thomas Updated 11/10/2022

* This post is part of iPhone Life's Tip of the Day newsletter. . *

Are you wondering how to delete apps on your iPhone?  If you need to know how to uninstall apps on iPhone, don’t worry, you’re not alone. You can remove an app from an iPhone just by long pressing on the app icon and tapping Remove App, but if you want more in-depth instructions (plus an additional method!) for how to delete apps, we’ll go step-by-step below.

Related: How to Hide Apps on Your iPhone (& Find Them Later)

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How to Uninstall Apps on iPhone

To learn more about how to use apps on your iPhone, check out our Tip of the Day newsletter. If you want to learn how to remove apps from your iPhone:

  1. Long press an app icon until the Quick Actions menu appears. You can do this with app icons on your Home Screen, or in your App Library. Either works!

    how do i delete apps off my iphone
  2. If you only want to remove that one app, then tap Remove App.

    how do i delete apps on iphone
  3. Tap Delete App from the menu that appears. (The other option, Remove from Home Screen, will banish the app to your App Library.)

    how to remove apps from iphone
  4. Confirm in the pop-up by tapping Delete. 

    how to uninstall apps on iphone

Now you have permanently deleted this app from your iPhone or iPad. If you want to learn how to delete apps in batches, read on.

How to Delete Apps in Multiples from Your Home Screen

If you have a lot of apps you want to delete at once, the method below may be a quicker way to remove apps from your iPhone or iPad.

  1. If you want to delete a bunch of apps, long press any blank space on your iPhone's Home Screen. Your Home Screen will enter jiggle mode. (You can also tap Edit Home Screen from the Quick Actions menu in the steps above to access jiggle mode.)

    Long press on Home Screen to delete app
  2. Find the app you want to remove, tap the minus icon, then tap Delete App.

    how do i delete apps on my iphone
  3. Confirm by tapping Delete.

    how do i delete apps on iphone
  4. The app you just deleted will disappear from your screen. Repeat to delete even more apps. Tap Done at the upper-right corner of your screen when you're finished deleting apps.

    how to uninstall apps on iphone

We hope this guide has helped you uninstall apps that you don't need anymore. Still can’t delete the app you want to remove? It could be a setting preventing you from uninstalling apps on your iPhone or iPad. Check out our troubleshooting article on what to do if you can’t delete apps from an iPhone or iPad. You can also find out how to make your iPhone clear out your old apps periodically when you learn how to offload unused apps.

If you delete an app in error, you can always download them from the App Store again!

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Topics

How-To
iPad
iPhone
Apps
Apple Apps
Third-Party Apps
Device Management

Author Details

Cullen Thomas's picture

Author Details

Cullen Thomas

Cullen Thomas is a senior instructor at iPhone Life. For ten years as faculty at Maharishi University, Cullen taught subjects ranging from camera and audio hardware to game design. Cullen applies a passion for gadgetry to answer questions about iPhones, iPads, Macs, and Apple cloud services; to teach live classes; and to specialize in the privacy and security aspects of the Apple ecosystem. Cullen has dual degrees in Media & Communications and Literature, and a Masters degree from the David Lynch Graduate School of Cinematic Arts.

Offline, Cullen designs videogames with Thought Spike Games, writes fiction, and studies new nerdery.

Mastodon: @CullenWritesTech@infosec.exchange

Email: cullen@iphonelife.com

Signal: +1-512-814-5526