How to delete apps on an iPhone

APPS can take up valuable memory space on your iPhone – and chances are, there are some apps you’re hardly ever using.

So how can you quickly get rid of those unneeded apps, and free up space for other things?

You can choose to delete apps from your iPhone entirely, or to hide them in the app library

How to delete apps on an iPhone

Apps can either be deleted from your iPhone and from iCloud entirely, or removed from your iPhone home screen, but stored in the app library.

If you want to get rid of an app entirely, just follow these few simple steps…

Hold your finger on the app to bring up the context menu;
Then, select ‘Remove App’;
Then, select ‘Delete App’ to remove it from your iPhone.

Note: some older versions of IOS may not include the ‘Remove App’ option.

Apps can take up a lot of space on your iPhone home screen - and you might not necessarily want to scroll through them all — Apps can take up a lot of space on your iPhone home screen – and you might not necessarily want to scroll through them all

To delete an app from the app library…

Hold your finger over an app in the app library to bring up a context menu;
Then, select ‘Delete App’, and then select ‘Delete’ to confirm.

If you need to use an older method to delete apps, here’s what to do…

Hold your finger on the app for a few seconds until the apps begin to wobble, which means they are in the ‘edit mode’;
Tap on the ‘X’ in the corner of whichever app or apps you wish to delete;
Finally, tap ‘Done’, or tap a blank part of the screen to exit the ‘edit mode’.

To keep your home screen neat and tidy, you can remove apps so that they are just stored in the app libraryCredit: Alamy

How to hide apps on an iPhone

If you want to hold on to apps, but don’t want all of them appearing on your home screen, you can ‘hide’ them by storing them in the app library or in app folders.

To remove an app from your home screen and keep it in the app library…

Hold your finger on the app to bring up the context menu;
Then, select ‘Remove App’;
Then, select ‘Move to App Library’.

You can group apps together into folders in order to tidy up your home screen a bitCredit: Getty – Contributor

Alternatively, you can hide apps from view by grouping them together in app folders, in these simple steps…

Hold your finger on an app until the apps wobble in the edit mode;
Drag the app you want to hide on top of another app, and your iPhone will create a folder;
Drag any other apps you want to hide into the same folder, or follow the steps above to create other folders;
To hide the app further, pull the folder to the far right of your iPhone screen until it falls onto the next page;
To rename a folder, hold your finger on the folder icon until the context menu appears, and select ‘Rename Folder’.

If you choose to delete an app entirely, you might also want to remove it from iCloud

How to delete apps from iCloud

To delete apps from iCloud using your iOS device…

Tap ‘Settings’, then your name, then ‘iCloud’, then ‘Manage Storage’;
Next, tap ‘Backups’, then select a device;
Then, tap ‘Show all apps’, then tap the switch next to the app you want to delete;
Lastly, confirm by tapping ‘turn off and delete’ in the pop-up.

To delete apps from iCloud using Mac OS…

Select ‘Apple’ from the main menu bar, then ‘System Preferences’, then ‘Apple ID’;
In iCloud, select ‘Manage’, and in the app list choose the one you want to delete.

Finally, to delete apps from iCloud on a PC…