Unable to remove stickers and emojis from my iPhone keyboard after iOS 18.3 update

Not sure if you guys have since figured this out, but it took a LOT of messing around for me to finally fix it. It's "easy" once you do it, but was so roundabout and unnecessary. My iPhone is iOS 18.3.2 currently.

1. Open the emoji keyboard in Messages
2. Click the Stickers button in the "+" menu (the emojis should become very large in size)
3. Click the Clock tab that appears at the top of that menu (on the far left)
4. Press/hold the Sticker for about 1-ish second (it will "expand" a tiny bit, showing that you've selected it, and a light glow encompasses it for a second)
5. When you let go, a there should be a banner above it that says "Remove." (You can remove Stickers, emojis, and memoji stickers by following those steps).

I have verified that YES it will remove it from your recently used emojis WITHOUT you having to delete the sticker OR the memoji.

I wish I would've tinkered with it for just a few minutes more, because I ended up deleting the stickers. But it was only 2 of them, so it won't be a hardship to get them back.

Happy deleting, y'all :D

Unfortunately I had to just delete them from my stickers keyboard.

I hit the plus (+) when I’m in iMessage, then I go to stickers. Once in the stickers I tap and hold on each sticker and a “delete” option should pop up for you. So now I have no stickers at all. But this did successfully remove them from my emoji keyboard at least!

Removing stickers, Memoji, or emojis from an iPhone entirely is not an option because these are integral parts of iOS. Emojis and stickers are embedded into the system as part of the keyboard and messaging features. Memoji, specifically, is a personal avatar feature tied to the user's iCloud account, and it's designed to be a fun and customizable addition to messages, FaceTime, and other iOS features.

While you can manage and remove specific stickers or Memoji stickers from apps like Messages, the core functionality that integrates these features into the iPhone cannot be disabled or removed completely from the system. If you prefer not to use them, you can simply avoid adding them in messages or use settings to limit their visibility, but they will remain part of iOS as they are considered built-in features for personalization and communication.

Idk if you have resolved this issue but if you go to your stickers in the messages app. Like just choose a message with someone and press the + and go to stickers. When you hold down on the stickers you can delete them. That takes them out of your recent emojis. Idk if that helps :)

I have No idea what I just did but I have stickers toggled off and they still come up under messages. I used one and it was permanently stuck to my most recent emojis. Couldn’t get rid of it. Somehow I hit something that brought up the most recently used stickers. I held it down and a bubble popped up that said remove. I tapped it and it disappeared from the most recently used stickers and most recently used emojis! I hope this can help someone. Sorry I can’t be more specific.

1. Click on emoji keyboard.
2. Swipe left to stickers.
3. Select recents (clock icon).
4. Tap and hold sticker you want to remove.
5. Select ‘Remove’.

The stickers should now be gone from your recently used emojis tab.

You can now remove stickers from emoji keyboard by going to Keyboard settings, scroll down to the bottom and turn off the emoji-Sticker options. This will disable to send stickers from emoji keyboard. ITS SO RELIEVING GOSH😭😭

I am also having this issue, and it's extremely annoying.

I did find a workaround via my Apple MacBook Pro. I went into iMessage on there and was able to right click and delete the sticker from Recently Used. It then also deleted from my iMessage on my phone.

Same here. This is very annoying to me. The setting to use stickers from the emoji keyboard is off. I saw a post on Reddit stating that this is a known bug to Apple. But that post was 2 weeks old already. I just deleted all my stickers. I didn’t want to do that but, I didn’t want them in my frequently used emoji section MORE. I’d rather not use stickers at all. Can’t believe it’s taking them so long to fix it

I am also having this issue. It happened as soon as I updated to iOS 18.3 overnight. I previously had removed the stickers from the leftmost part of the emoji keyboard (next to the recently used emojis) and all of a sudden, even with the stickers option still toggled off, the stickers are back. I keep accidentally sliding all the way to the left to access recently used emojis and getting stickers instead. It's extremely annoying that this can't be fixed.

I’ve tried all these steps multiple times and in various orders and it hasn’t changed anything. Actually, the last time I updated my phone it made it worse—I used to not see stickers in Messages, but now they’re present whether toggled in Settings or not.

ever since my phone updated to 18.3 update I have not been able to remove the stickers from my recent emoji and is very annoying because it looks very unorganized and un-neat to me and it gives me ocd. So Apple, you need to fix this issue because everybody is very annoyed with it and it’s just not necessary some people enjoy the stickers some people so please fix the toggle in the settings section.

Dear apple, I have given you my life in electronics and let you spy on me daily. Please remove this feature because based on all your spying you should know I have no interest in the sticker/ memoji nonsense that is made for children.

I already have the stickers toggle turned off and deleted all of my stickers from my phone, and it still appears in my recent emojis along with a gif I used two weeks ago… which is super annoying. Do you have any other ways of getting rid of Memojis on the phone?