How to Delete Apps On iPhone When No X Appears

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Delete apps iphone

It is easy to delete apps from your iPhone. Just tap and hold the app you wish to delete until all the icons start wiggling. A little X will appear at the top. Just tap on it, then tap Delete on the confirmation prompt that appears. This action by itself deletes the app and all its data.

Why apps wiggle but no X appears

If you are trying to delete apps on your iPhone but no X appears, it could be because of a variety of factors;

You’re trying to delete stock apps

The X doesn’t appear on some of your iPhone’s stock apps since they can’t be deleted. These include Messaging app, iTunes, iCloud, Photos, App Store, Contacts, Safari, Settings, among others. Those that can be deleted include compass, maps, Music, Notes, and Reminders.

You’ve prevented apps from being deleted

Go to Settings > General > Restrictions > Deleting Apps and make sure the app you are tying to delete isn’t set ‘off’.

Apps might be frozen

Try opening apps or tap and hold another app then observe if the X appears after wiggling. If it doesn’t, restart your device before you try once more.

Read Also: How to delete app purchases history

Alternative ways of deleting apps when no x appears

If you’ve followed the above advise but you still can’t delete apps from your iPhone since no X appears, then use these alternative ways of deleting apps.

Use Settings

Tap Settings > General > iPhone Storage and wait for all the apps to load. From here, tap the app you wish to delete then tap Delete App on the prompt that appears. There is also a useful setting on this page if you wish to delete more than one app to save space. Just above the list of apps, you will see Offload Unused Apps. Tap it and all apps you don’t use will be removed from your device. Unlike tapping X, this option leaves behind the apps documents and data which allows deleted apps to remember their previous state or settings when reinstalled.

Use iTunes

On iTunes on your PC or Mac, go to apps library and select an app you wish to delete. Press the Delete key and tap Confirm on the dialog box that appears. That’s it, your app should now be deleted. On thing you should note is that this method only works on iTunes 12.7 and below.

Delete during an update

You can delete many apps during an update easily. In the iTunes update section, you should see a list of new versions of apps that you can install. If there’s an app you no longer wish to keep, simply delete it by right clicking on the apps icon and selecting Delete from Library. Not only will the app be removed from the library, but won’t also be updated.

I hope this information has helped you if no x appears when trying to delete apps from your iPhone. In that case, you’ve also learnt new ways of deleting apps from your device. Feel free to check out other tutorials on iPhone apps on our site.