Did you accidentally delete an app on your iPhone or iPad? Learn how to easily restore both free and paid apps without purchasing them again.
It isn’t uncommon for someone to delete an app, only later to realize that they need it. You may have ended up deleting an app from your iPhone or iPad to make space and then had the urge to install it back.
Fortunately, there’s an easy way to restore your deleted apps, even if you don’t remember the name of the app! Just note that you cannot recover the offline data for deleted apps unless you restore the full iPhone backup (more on that later).
Restore deleted apps on iPhone and iPad
- Open the App Store and tap your profile icon in the top right corner.
- Tap Apps > My Apps.
- Navigate to the Not on this iPhone tab.
- You’ll see a list of all the apps that are no longer on your iOS device. This list includes even those apps that you had installed on older iPhones and iPads. Tap the download button next to the app to install it again. If an app was paid, it won’t show the price any longer, but just the regular download arrow. Tap to get it without having to pay again.
Note that Apple also allows users to delete/hide built-in stock apps in iOS, so if you did remove a stock app, then here’s how to get it back.
Restore delete app data
If you offload an app, the app data is preserved, and reinstalling the app restores everything the way it was.
However, when you delete an app, all the data is also deleted, except for what’s saved on the app’s server. For instance, even if you delete Facebook or Instagram apps from your iPhone, all your posts and photos are still there. This is because these posts and photos are saved on Facebook or Instagram’s servers and not your iPhone.
In case the app you deleted does not save data on its server, you are left with no choice but to start fresh. However, if you have turned on iCloud/computer backup for your iPhone, you can erase your iPhone and then restore the backup. Hopefully, this will recover your app data.
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