How to Offload Unused Apps on iOS

Aug 21, 2021

2 minutes

Apps are one of the biggest culprits for storage usage on iOS devices. Because apps tend to increase in size as they gather more and more data on your iPhone over time, iPhone user's most used apps will tend to take up the most space, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of apps on their iOS devices that aren't taking up unecessary space.

There are many apps, both built-in and third-party, that take up large amounts of space on iOS user's devices. Luckily, it's easy to offload apps to clear up storage space on an iOS device or prevent future storage issues. In fact, there are three ways to offload unecessary apps on an iOS device.

In this guide, I show you how to offload apps on your iPhone, or other iOS devices, three ways. Let's get started!

Note: Offloading and deleting apps are two different processes with different results. By offloading an app iOS users can avoid losing all their app data. If you want to know how to delete an app on an iOS device, you can use this guide.

iPhone

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Automatically offloading apps is the easiest way to offload apps on your iOS product. However, it comes with a few setbacks. For example, since the iPhone or other iOS product is offloading apps automatically, it may offload apps you don't want it to offload. Though it offloads apps you're not regularly using, that doesn't mean it's offloading apps you want it to offload or that you no longer need.

Luckily, the apps are offloaded, not deleted, which removes all data from the device. Remember, offloading is a safer way to save space taken up by your apps versus deleting them.

How to automatically offload apps:

Open Settings.
Click "App Store."
Turn on "offload unused apps" by clicking the toggle to the right hand side.

If you want to determine exactly how much space you will be saving when turning the automatic offloading feature on, consider trying the alternate option below.

Alternatively:

Open Settings.
Click "general."
Click "iPhone storage." If you are using another iOS device, it may say "iPod storage" or "iPad storage."
Click "enable" next to offload unused apps.

You'll notice that it shows you how many MB or GB will be saved with automatically offloading apps.

If you prefer not to automatically offload apps, you can choose to manually offload individual apps. By offloading individual apps, you can avoid your iPhone offloading apps you would prefer it didn't. The only down side is that it may take more time since you have to offload each app that you wish to offload manually.

How to offload apps:

Open Settings.
Click "general."
Click "iPhone storage." If you are using another iOS device, it may say "iPod storage" or "iPad storage."
Take a look at the apps. The list is in order from top to bottom based on use and size. So, the higher the app on the list, the more space it's taking on your product, but the more often it's being used.
Click an app you would like to offload. Note the size of the app versus the size of the app data. The app data is the amount of data that will remain on your device.
Click "offload app."
Click "offload app" again.

Continue these steps until you have enough storage on your iOS device to do all the things you love!

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Tayler (75)

Jun 21, 2021

1 minute

Do you have a bunch of apps downloaded onto your phone, taking up valuable space on your phone? It's okay - I did, too before I sat down to clear up some space when my memory was nearly full.

How to Offload Unused Apps on iOS

Automatically Offload Apps

Manually Offload Apps