Does Your iPhone Keep Uninstalling Apps? How to Stop Automatic Offloading

If you’ve ever tried to use an app on that you haven’t accessed for a while, only to discover that you must re-download it because your iPhone keeps uninstalling apps? Fear not — you probably don’t have a bug or virus on your device. Instead, your iPhone is utilizing a feature called Automatic Offloading.

Related Reading:

The good news is that while having your apps constantly removed is quite annoying, you can easily turn this feature off and on again. Today, you’ll learn all about Automatic Offloading on your iPhone — along with how to stop it from deleting your apps if that’s what you want.

What Is This Automatic Offloading on iOS?

Automatic Offloading is a feature that Apple introduced in iOS 11. the main reason for its existence is to help iPhone users save and optimize the storage on their devices.

If you’ve noticed that your iPhone keeps uninstalling apps, it’s because the feature automatically “offloads” apps that you don’t use, or use only very rarely. Automatic Offloading normally works when your iPhone is low on storage. The apps will remain on your home screen, but they’ll have a small cloud logo next to them.

The good news is that you don’t have to start from scratch when you reinstall the app. Compared to when you manually remove an app on your iPhone, Automatic Offloading saves the app’s documents and app data locally on your device. Before iOS 11, the only option to save storage was to actually delete an app (which also deleted the app’s documents and data).

When you reinstall an offloaded app, the data will be automatically restored.

What’s the Usual Timescale Before an App Is Automatically Offloaded?

There isn’t a set-in-stone time period that you can’t use an app before the Automatic Offloading feature removes it. But as a general rule of thumb, it’s unlikely that Apple would remove an app that you use every day — such as instant messaging tools like WhatsApp.

Can I Set the Timescale for How Long I’d Like Apps to Last Before They’re Deleted?

Unfortunately, you cannot decide on how long your iPhone keeps apps before uninstalling them. You can only choose whether you want the Automatic Offloading feature to be switched on or off.

I Don’t Want My iPhone to Keep Uninstalling Apps. How Do I Turn Off the Offloading Feature?

Offload Unused Apps is enabled by default, but you can easily turn the feature off if you’re fed up of your apps constantly disappearing. Below are the instructions you should follow.

1. Open the Settings app and scroll down to App Store.
2. Scroll toward the bottom of the App Store settings window. Here, you’ll see a toggle called Offload Unused Apps. Turn this off so that it’s no longer green.

If you ever decide that you want the feature back on, just follow the above steps and tap on Offload Unused Apps to enable it.

How to Individually Offload Apps on your iPhone

You might like having the option to offload apps instead of deleting them, but you don’t want iOS to do so automatically.

Luckily, you can still offload apps individually even if the automatic setting is disabled. Here’s how.

1. Go to Settings > General.
2. Tap on iPhone Storage.
3. Select the app you want to offload.
4. In the next menu, you should see an option to Offload App. Click on this.
5. A pop-up window will appear at the bottom of your screen. Click on Offload App again to confirm your decision.

As with the automatic setting, individually offloading apps will save the app’s documents and data on your device. That way, when you opt to reinstall the app, it’ll seamlessly restore that data.

How to Reinstall Offloaded Apps

Okay, so turning off the Automatic Offloading feature will stop an iPhone that keeps deleting apps from doing so. But what do you do if your iPhone has already offloaded apps that you want to use?

Thankfully, reinstalling an offloaded app is very easy. You also have three options for doing so.

Your first option is to go to where the app was installed on your iPhone and tap on it. Your app will then begin downloading.

Alternatively, you can search for the app in Spotlight. When the icon appears, which should usually be in the Top Hit section, click on it to re-download your app.

Otherwise, you can follow go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage. When you’re here, find the app that was uninstalled and select Reinstall App.

Other Issues That Might Arise When Your iPhone Keeps Uninstalling Apps

Some users have encountered issues with the Automatic Offloading feature.

Namely, some users report that their app data is actually getting deleted when an app is offloaded. We can’t independently confirm every case of this, but it’s definitely not how offloading is supposed to work.

It might be a bug in your specific instance or an issue with an individual app. Thankfully, loss of app data when offloading apps does not seem to be widespread. In other words, it’s may very well just be an isolated or sporadic incident.

On another note, if your iPhone is actually deleting apps for real, then there’s probably another bug or issue with your handset. We recommend trying a hard reboot, backing up and factory resetting your iPhone or contacting Apple support directly.

Use These Tips to Stop Your iPhone From Automatically Uninstalling Apps

If your iPhone keeps uninstalling apps without you wanting it to, it’s probably because of the offloading feature. Thankfully, it’s very easy to turn this feature off. And if you do want to offload individual apps, you have that option as well.

In rare instances, you may experience your data being deleted when apps are offloaded. However, this isn’t something that you should worry about too much. At the very worst, you can just log back into the apps that were deleted.

Although you can’t choose the timescale for Automatic Offloading, we hope that this guide gave you some more control over how apps are used on your iPhone.