Deleting apps on itunes 11 not deleting them when syncing with Iphone 4s!

This may seem kind of drastic, but I just deleted the apps from iTunes, then I restored the phone (iPhone 4S). The process took about an hour, but it only put back on the apps in my iTunes Library. All the data was still there in the apps that were restored (for the most part; for instance, my Hipstamatic photos were still in the app, but when I opened the app it asked me to re-download my in-app purchases, which took another five minutes maybe).

I was nervous, but I had multiple backups (through Time Machine and using this method: http://wp.me/psKvb-2Z), I hadn't trashed all the apps yet, and I knew I could restore app data with iexplorer.

There may be some stray data there from some of the apps that were removed, but I went from having my phone nearly full with ~300 apps to having 8GB free with ~100 apps. Things seem to be moving faster and smoother than before, too. An hour without use of my phone seemed like a better use of time than hunting for all the superfluous apps on my phone, clicking the x and the confirmation.

Hope this helps anyone wanting to do an app "clear-out" or anyone nervous about restoring their phone when it becomes sluggish!

Hi, i have been having this same problem for a couple of weeks or so and i have found a solution!

Look to your top left hand area of the screen, u will see "file, edit, view, controls bla bla bla..", right below that is a button that will usually say music. CLICK ON THAT BUTTON AND A DROPDOWN MENU POPS UP. SELECT APPS AND U CAN SEE THE APPS LIKE IT WAS IN ITUNES V.10. AND DELETE LIKE YOU WOULD IN VERSION 10.

happy deleting 😀

That does not work. Just did this today. This is the problem that people posted in the first place! Deleting in Itunes will not delete the apps on the iphone on the next sync

Anyone else have an answer?

Hmmm i tried it and now i know what u mean.

There is also another way. If u can locate your iTunes folder then it should work.

Follow these :

iTunes folder> iTunes Media> Mobile Applications.

There u can find all the apps installed in your iTunes in your pc, u can manually select the apps u want to delete and it will not install again when u sync. It may take your time a little,but it worked for me and i hopes it works for u too.

Pls let me know how it goes 😀

That was exactly what I was about to answer, however... your reply is incomplete if you like every detail to be right...

What I did to all of a sudden have the same need to delete Apps on my Mac:

I was transfering the purchased items from my iPhone, and realised I didn't want that to happen... I didn't expect Apps to get copied to the Mac... I was merely thinking that maybe music was on my iPhone that was purchased on the store, but maybe wasn't on my Mac.

Dislaimer that counts is thus: I wasn't suncing apps in the first place, which makes that I cannot 100% verify the below procedure. Read: I cannot test if syncing after the below procedure gives troubles such as all apps being deleted on your iPhone. I am very much in doubt that that would be to happen, so I just recommend you to contemplate a while about the next sentence:

For all security's sake: make a backup of your iPhone! Delete it after the procedure below.

Tools:

- a nice cup of coffe or other suitable mind-satisier

- your computer (preferebaly a Mac)

- your iDevice

- a USB cable

- a bunch of patience and an elastic definition of the word 'time' (mind you, it might go faster than you think!!

So after backing up, or after deniyng the need of it, and saving time:

______________________________________________________________

1. Delete all the apps in Finder, they will be found in the 'MobileApplications' folder.

To get there browse

• to your home folder
• into the 'Music' folder
• into the 'iTunes' folder
• into the 'MobileApplications' folder

2. Delete all references in iTunes [I have v.11.0.3 (42)]

• go into the top left drop down menu (probably set to 'Music')
• select Apps
• delete all apps (I did one by one, maybe cmd+a and delete would also work)
  You will not be promted, as iTunes finds no files anyways, it doesn't prompt you if you want to be sure, nothing is to be deleted anyways)

3. Verify

I verified if all was okay, by selecting my iPhone, and going into the Apps tab. The list next to the Iphone windows simulation, I had no apps left (logic)

4. Sync and pray that all apps stay on your iDevice.

Please report after testing if no report is given below by a previous user...

It's surprising to me how many people here are missing the point, but I suppose that means they're not suffering the same annoyance that this initial complaint is referencing. Namely, if you choose to download an app on you iPad, say because it's free today and you'd like to give it a try, you will have to delete it on each device and iTunes individually should you choose not to keep it.

I just did a cleanup/removal via itunes of about 40 unwanted apps, like I've always done, expecting them to be removed from my devices. Alas, they're still on my phone and ipad. So I've gone through my iPad and repeated the tedious process of assessing each apps merrit, deleteing the ones I didnt want. syncing again I find iTunes repopulating my ipad with the deleted apps that I hadn't previously deleted from iTunes (my selection prcess wasnt exactly the same the second time).

Moral of the story; if you want to delete apps, keep a log of which ones and repeat the process on all your Apple products. It's unecessarily painful and I will certainly not be trying out new apps with the same casual approach I used to enjoy.

I'm thrilled that Apple can make their products ever more accessible to the new users, but when they remove past capabilities that served more advanced users I feel my loyalty slip. I certainly don't promote Apple to my friends like I used too.

I have the greatest problem

I use itunes and I select the app I want to remove from the ipad and I remove them "not from the itunes library"

It removed but when I sync my iPad again, they are synced and installed.... And I have to remove them again from my device

This problem occured since itunes 11 and not found with me before

I also experienced inability to sync new or updated apps from iTunes 11 to my iPad nor could I rearrange icons and transfer the new locations to my iPad. Sync appeared to run, but nothing got commited to the device.

Short solution... I identified and deleted two apps on my iPad that had inadvertently been installed by another family member using their iTunes account instead of mine. These apps were identified by using the Transfer Purchases function to copy apps from my iPad to iTunes. The two rogue apps were not transferred and were named in an error box at the end of the transfer operation.

For a more detailed description of how to do this... see https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4804110

All sync issues immediately resolved for me... your mileage may vary.

As of iTunes 11, you cannot delete apps from a device by first removing them from the iTunes library. Instead, they remain on the device and are *not* copied back to iTunes on the next sync. However, apps deleted directly on a device *are* copied back from iTunes to the device on the next sync. Apps deleted on the device *within* iTunes (Device > Apps menu, click on 'x' for app icon, answer Y to "apply changes") are NOT copied back to the device the next sync, but also are not deleted from the library.

Many people are confused about this. It is creating a big problem. People with multiple iOS devices who wish to delete unwanted apps are resorting to deleting apps in their iTunes library, then doing a full restore on their devices (!!), or doing file-level manipulations on their Mac/PC.

Other threads:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5112995?start=0&tstart=0

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4558443?start=0&tstart=0

I don't know if this was an intentional design change or a bug. If intentional it should have been clearly documented -- including the underlying rationale. I cannot find any Apple knowledgebase article or release note mentioning this.

If an intentional change, maybe Apple felt it lessened the likelihood of accidental deletions, but at the expense of rapid app management. Now you must make a list of each app you deleted in iTunes, then go to *each* device and delete them manually.

AWESOME!!! Thanks. New to the IPhone arena, company phone. Android fan....but see IPhone's advantages, one being battery life!!!

I was having the same problem and found it time consuming to do delete all the apps in my iTunes folder and then restore just the ones I needed or keeping a list of which apps I deleted. I figured out an easier way to manage apps through iTunes.

First I went through my iTunes library and deleted any apps I didn't need or want anymore. Afterwards I performed a manual backup of my iOS device (If you have more then one, you will have to repeat all these steps for each one). You will get a message asking if you want to back up apps not in the library, selected back up apps. Now heres where it involves a little legwork:

Open the iTunes mobile application folder on your computer, easiest way is to right click any app in the library and select show in finder/explorer. Now change the view to detail so you can sort the list by data modified. Looks for files that were modified at the time you just did the backup. These should be all the Apps that were missing in your library because we just deleted them but they were still on your iOS device and the backup put them back.

Now go to the app page of your iOS device in iTunes. Using the recently modified list as a guide search for those apps and tell iTunes to remove them from the iOS device. When you done selecting all for removal, click sync and iTunes will clear out your device of these Apps.

Final Step, return back to the screen that shows the apps in your iTunes library and using the same method to find them on in your iOS device remove those apps again. To confirm you got them all go back to your iOS device and perform a manual backup. If you don't get the apps message again you got them all. If you do, just click back up apps and check the folder again looking for any new apps and repeat the same procedure.

I hope this helps anyone who was trying to clean out there iTunes library and iOS device like we use to be able to before iTunes 11.

Note: if the app you remove in iTunes exist on more then one iOS device you may find yourself deleting it more then once as your repeat the procedure on multiple iOS devices syncing to the same library

My Method i just posted saves you from having to make a list of deleted apps manually

Well, this is just a time consuming experience from Apple...

I have 4 devices, and a mac. No way of doing the job 5 times.

All the other solutions, are just a short solution.

We need the old "do you want to delete" sync functionality from itunes 10. It was working very well.

You know for a company that prides itself on ease-of-use and the whole "it just works" slogan, I can't believe this change has been in effect for so many months with no resolve.

I have an iPhone and 2 iPads. They're all sync'd under the one account. I just deleted 25+ apps from my iTunes library and plugged my iPhone in to sync.

My iPhone then proceeded to copy all the apps I just deleted BACK INTO MY ITUNES LIBRARY, thus nullifying everything that I just did.

OLD METHOD:

1. Open iTunes and click on App Library

2. Deleted unwanted apps

3. Plug in iDevice and sync

NEW METHOD:

1. Open iTunes and click on App Library

2. Delete unwanted apps

3. Make a list of every app you just deleted

4. Tediously go through all your iDevices (in my case iPhone and 2 iPads) finding all the apps in various folders

5. Long tap each app and manually delete it (repeat 3 times across all devices)

6. Plug in device and sync

7. Realise you missed a few apps

8. Delete apps from library again

9. Find apps on iDevices and manually delete them once more

So in essence if i delete 30 apps, i need to repeat the delete action a total of ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY TIMES!!

This whole thing is idiotic.

I cannot agree more, very idiotic. I have 469 apps and I use maybe 20 of them regularily. I now need to delete a good 200+ apps from iTunes, my iPhone, and my two iPads.

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