Can I delete my apps from my hard drive now that I have iCloud?

I think I've been given some erroneus information... I was told I could delete my apps from my iTunes library to free up space in my hard drive on my Mac Mini since we now have iCloud to back up apps. However, when I did this, it deleted all of my apps on my iphone and ipad. I deselected "sync apps" in the preferences for the two devices, and I figured that meant that whatever I had on my devices, it wouldn't change a thing... but ZAP! They were gone when I synced! Long story short, after about 5 tries, I now have all of my apps STILL on my hard drive, and iCloud has proven to just be a nice little unecessary tool. How do I supposedly free up my hard drive space of apps (about 16 gigs) without killing them from my iDevices??

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Nov 16, 2011 10:04 PM

17 replies

djc0

Level 1

6 points

Dec 7, 2011 10:59 PM in response to Chris CA

Agreed with Chris.

I have multiple layers of backup for the things that are important to me. I can always download the apps themselves if I need to. The chance of an app that I really care about being pulled is quite small. And compared to saving 50GB on my 250GB drive ...

Note that the app data *is* backed up to iCloud, allowing a full restore if needed (along with redownloading the app itself). You can see/select what is backed up in the iPhone/iPad iCloud settings. See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4859.

The best solution to this problem currently seems to be to delete or move the apps in the Mobile Applications directory. This will put an little "!" next to each app, but iTunes (and syncing) will otherwise behave normally. You can always download/move back the apps if needed.

babowa

Level 9

78,568 points

Dec 7, 2011 11:06 PM in response to Chris CA

Not even with backups you make yourself?

If I make a backup on one or more external hard drives, I don't need an online cloud service and I don't trust any online server with personal information. I was not referring to apps - I have no apps that need to be downloaded because I don't buy anything at MAS; I was referring to personal information, contacts, documents I create, or photos, etc. I've opened an iCloud account, but I have no information parked there. A hacker will get to any information there sooner or later. The only information I'd entrust it with are bookmarks and I have not been able to get the bookmarks there without iCloud also syncing other things (such as my address book) even though none of the options were ticked on. I had to manually delete them.

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Can I delete my apps from my hard drive now that I have iCloud?