Apple products come with a large number of built-in apps. These take a substantial chunk of your storage space and also crowd your home screen. Removing these apps frees up space for photos, videos and apps that you actually use.

Here’s a step-by-step guide of how to remove built-in Apple iOS apps from your Apple devices.

Which built-in apps can I delete from my Apple device?

First things first – there’s an-Apple approved list of the apps that you can remove. These are:

  • Activity
  • Apple Books4
  • Calculator
  • Calendar
  • Compass
  • Contacts2
  • FaceTime3
  • Files
  • Find My Friends (iOS 12 only)
  • Home
  • iTunes Store
  • Mail
  • Maps4
  • Measure
  • Music4
  • News (where available)
  • Notes
  • Podcasts4
  • Reminders
  • Stocks
  • Tips
  • TV (where available)
  • Videos
  • Voice Memos
  • Watch app5
  • Weather

You cannot remove the App Store, Camera, Clock, Find My, Messages, Phone, Photos, Safari, and Settings. You need to unpair your Apple Watch to delete the Watch app.

When removing apps, user data and configuration files are also deleted. Cloud-based content, however, isn’t permanently removed. Furthermore, not having certain in-built apps on your phone may affect other apps’ functionality. For example, you cannot use CarPlay without the Books, Maps, Music, or Podcasts apps. If you delete an app on your iPhone that’s also on your Apple Watch, the app is deleted from both Apple devices.

Some cloud-based features will still be available, even when the mother app is removed. For example, deleting FaceTime doesn’t affect the possibility of making and receiving calls via the Phone and Contacts applications.

How can I delete an app?

  1. Tap and hold the app that you want to remove
  2. Tap on “Rearrange Apps“
  3. Tap the upper-left corner and choose “Delete“.
  4. End the process by tapping “Done” (on iPhone X) or the Home button (on iPhone 8 or earlier models).

Can I restore deleted apps?

The answer is yes! Fortunately, you can bring back deleted apps if you ever decide that you want them back. If you have an Apple Watch, you can restore Apple Watch apps using your phone.

  1. Visit the App store
  2. Search for the deleted app
  3. Tap on “Restore”
  4. Use your Home screen to open the newly-restored app

What happens if I decide to delete a built-in app from my device?

Here are a couple of functionalities that stop working after you delete a specific built-in app:

  • Deleting a built-in app from an iPhone that’s paired with an Apple Watch results in the app being deleted from both Apple devices.
  • When you delete the Stocks and Weather app, you cannot view stocks or weather on any other paired device. Stocks and weather info won’t come up in your iPhone’s Notification Centre.
  • If you delete the Calculator app, you cannot access use Control Centre to access a calculator.