iPhone apps stuck on loading after restore

Here’s what I think is happening.

If you do a “Restore from iCloud” , the App Store actually gets a list of every app that you have ever downloaded from the beginning of time. I’ve always found it annoying that Apple won’t let you delete stupid one-off apps that you download. Sure you can “hide” them but why not just delete them?

Anyways, the Restore gets stuck trying to download apps that are dead and missing from the App Store or that or incompatible with iOS 11.

If you go into the App Store, you’ll see a bunch of apps with the pending spinning circle. You can tap on these and pause he download. You’ll see some with a greyed our iCloud. You should hide these by swiping left. Stop all the spinning circle apps. Hide all those with a greyed our iCloud. Hide any garbage you no longer want. Does this carefully as the list updates slowly and it’s easy to hide something you want.

Delete any apps that are in the loading phase. These are probably the blockers that have gummed up the whole system.

Once you do this you can selectively get back on track.

Do note: this completely obliterated the advantage of restoring from iCloud. You will lose data, settings, and app layout. Extremely annoying.

After 48 hours of frustration, the answer to this problem for me was somewhat obvious. I was upgrading from a 6S to an X, but when I tried to restore my backup, most of the apps were "stuck" in a state of loading. What i needed to do was to go back to my 6S, upgrade that phone to the latest iOS version, and THEN update all of my apps. Many of the apps need to be updated to the latest iOS, which is the version that was by-default loaded on the new X, and created an issue when trying to sync. SO NET, before you save a backup, refresh all of your apps to work on the iOS version that will be on the new phone.

- Step 1: Upgrade iOS on old phone

- Step 2: Update all apps on old phone

- Step 3: Save backup of old phone

- Step 4: Begin setup of new phone

- Step 5: When appropriate, restore backup (which was made with latest version of iOS and apps)

hope this helps.

I had the exact same problems as everyone is describing here, and I found the solution.

The problem appears to be related to how the initial installation/restore was done on the new phone, and almost nothing will fix it. The answer is:

1. Make sure the iOS version of your new phone is updated to the latest (or ideally matching the iOS version of your old phone).

2. Resent your phone and erase all content and settings (Settings -> General -> Reset -> Erase All Content and Settings

3. This will restart your phone as a new out-of-the-box phone, and after a few steps it will ask you if you want to restore your phone from a backup. Choose yes, and select your backup to restore from.

Then you'll see that everything will work perfectly. The only disappointment is when I discovered certain apps that are no longer available on the App Store will no longer work. For those apps, you'll be given the option to either delete them or keep them (but no use keeping an app that doesn't work).

FYI, I've just upgraded from an iPhone 6s Plus to an iPhone X. I have about 150 apps (including some that are no longer on the App Store).

Had the same issue. I followed James Mol post but nothing happened. After 2 days called Apple Support.

The problem for me was the restore was interrupted and stopped in the middle of the restore. This is what she told me to do and it worked.

Do a force restart. For the iphone x, do this right after the other in this order 1. press the volume up button 2. press the volume down button 3. press and HOLD the power button until the apple appears on the screen

The force restart 'kickstarted' the restart and all the apps started downloading again.

The only problem was I lost some apps. Option 1 is to reset and erase and do another restore from backup. Option 2 is to download the apps again. I chose option 2.

Hope this helps

Just got off the phone with AppleCare and now the apps are downloaded. Suggest you call AC at (800-275-2273) if you have the time.

After reviewing a number of things I had done, we did a hard reset. Sound up, sound down then hold the power switch until the white Apple shows. Still didn't change anything.

I deleted one app Then back to the app store>Profile Icon>Purchases and searched for it. When I clicked the cloud icon, it started downloading.

WARNING: even though I backed up my phone to the cloud and the computer, the data was missing from my app that I deleted.

After two deletes, I just tapped on the blue cloud and it started to download. It appears it will only do one app at at time this way. You can select 2, but they download one by one.

At this point, I went to the home screen touched a darkened app and it started downloading. You can touch more than one but the download one ofter the other. You still have to reenter passwords and ID.

For now it is working.

I was having the same issue. None of my apps were finished downloading and my phone would not lock. None of my apps would open nor would my control center come up. I spent the day speaking to different apple representatives and none of us could figure out what to do. After many different attempts, I knew from the start that all I had to do was to get it to turn off but it wouldn't force restart nor go into safe mode or anything. I even tried connecting it to my MacBook Air to restore it again or update it and it wouldn't work. Until, well I'm not sure if all iPhone's do this but if you click the lock button three times, AssistiveTouch comes up. If you click on it then click device>more>restart, it should turn off then turn back on and from there it took me to the start up screen and I just had to set up my iPhone again. So my assumption is that maybe the restore process just never finished, I really don't know but hey it works now!

Sorry for the poor grammar and typos in my original post. Getting used to the X. Not that that is an excuse for grammar. Haha. I was unable to edit my original post. Here is a cleaner version.

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Here’s what I think is happening.

If you do a “Restore from iCloud” , the App Store actually gets a list of every app that you have ever downloaded from the beginning of time. I’ve always found it annoying that Apple won’t let you delete stupid one-off apps that you download. Sure you can “hide” them but why not just delete them from your account altogether?

Anyways, the Restore gets stuck trying to download apps that are dead and missing from the App Store or that are incompatible with iOS 11.

If you go into the App Store, you’ll see a bunch of apps with the pending download spinning circle. You can tap on these and pause the download. You’ll see some with a greyed out iCloud icon. Hide these by swiping left. Stop all the spinning circle apps. Hide all those with a greyed out iCloud. While you are at it, hide any garbage you no longer want either. Do this carefully as the list updates slowly and it’s easy to hide something you want.

Back on your home screen, delete any apps that are in the loading phase. These are probably the blockers that have gummed up the whole system.

Once you do this you can selectively get back on track by picking and choosing the apps you want in the App Store.

As others have noted, this completely obliterated the advantage of restoring from iCloud. You may lose data and settings if the app didn’t store them in iCloud. You will absolutely lose app layout. Extremely annoying.

After waiting for a couple hours for my Apps to restore, this is what I found with my 8 Plus. Using 3D touch I clicked on each App that was stuck on Waiting and selected "Cancel Download". Instantly the App became available. It seems most of the Apps had been downloaded, but each one still said waiting. The ones that hadn't downloaded, were deleted by this method, but were easily retrieved afterwards, by re-downloading them from the cloud. Hope this helps.

We eventually went to Genius Bar. It was suggested to us that perhaps our back up was somehow corrupted, so we restored the new iPhone X as a new phone and went to the Apple Store and just downloaded the apps. This worked well. Since all photos and contacts were shared, those were recovered too. Only lost some texts.

Hi. I was fighting with it for hours and the only thing that worked at the end was getting it back to factory setting (via iTunes), start it as a new iPhone and then load the back-up once again... then all went fine. Hope it helps.

I experienced this problem when upgrading from an iphone 6 to an iphone x (both on IOS 11.3). I believe that this is a bug relating to the fact that apple requires a wifi connection for most downloads (even when the user opts to use cellular data). I first paused all downloads to update 1 at a time and they never moved. As a last resort, I connected to a hot spot (using the same cellular data plan and location) and all of my downloads happened almost immediately.

Hi Bill,

I also had the same problem and it really helped me restoring the phone again, because I didn't have anything to lose (just the 20 min) and at the "configuration step" connected to iTunes and to a wifi with a stable internet connection and let Apple choose which Apps should install at first and how many simultaneously. Because if you choose for yourself, the iOS has this BUG and can't continue further. If you let for its own to install the apps, you can see 3 different status:

1. Waitin

2. Loading

3. Installation

And as soon one app is completely installed, another one starts to load. This is what I figured out and I hope it helps you

P.S. The iOS Version I use it 11.4 and iTunes 12.7.5.9

Greetings from Austria!

I used a few of these tips like logging off in the app store with no results. I then stopped all of the apps trying to download, making all of them have the cloud icon next to them before signing out. Waited for a brief moment before signing back in. I then went down the list of apps one by one redownloading and they all came back pretty quickly. Hopefully this helps.

This is what I did:

After trying all the steps above, I decided to restore my iPhone to factory settings, erease everything to start again, I choose “set as a new iPhone” then when I arrived to the option to restore from iCloud or restore using iTunes i select iTunes, the iPhone restore and the app download as usual, problem solved