How to Remove Apps from Apple Watch?
Apple Watch has become a crucial part of our daily tech for about 100 million users worldwide. People seem to be enjoying how well it integrates with your iPhone but still stands on its own as a fantastic device with its own app ecosystem and also a major player in the fitness wearable market. With about 8 different iterations and an adventure version called Apple Watch Ultra, Apple Watch has become the biggest player about 36.1% of the market share which is about 3 times more than the second player (Samsung) in the market.
How to Remove Apps from Apple Watch?
See Also: How to Change Exercise Goal on Apple Watch?
There are two different ways to remove apps on the Apple Watch. You can either do it via the Apple Watch itself or you can also remove apps from the Watch app in the connected iPhone. We will look into both methods but the screenshots are from watchOS 9 & iOS 16 so in case you have an earlier version of the operating system in both Apple Watch and iOS, you can still be able to follow the steps below without much difficulty.
How to remove apps from your Apple Watch Home Screen
To remove apps from the Apple Watch screen, please put on the watch first and I’m assuming the watch is unlocked and is working perfectly.
See Also: How to Enable Low Power Mode on Apple Watch?
- Press the Digital crown button on the side to reveal the Apple Watch Home from the Watch Face.
- Now Press and Hold over any app to reveal the options where you can start editing apps.
- In the popup that appears, you can select Edit Apps. Now the home screen with all the apps starts jiggling as it would look if you are trying to rearrange apps on the iPhone Home Screen as you can see in the screenshot below.
- Now, you can tap on the x icon at the top right corner of the app you want to delete as you can see.
- Once you tap on the delete icon, you will get a prompt asking whether you want to delete that particular app. Choose Delete App from that which would ideally remove the app from the Apple Watch. Please know it won’t be removed from iPhone.
Now, you have successfully removed that app from the Apple Watch. You can reinstall it anytime you want and there is no limit to how many times you install any particular application.
How to remove apps from the Watch App
Since Apple Watch is mostly connected to an iPhone, there is a way for us to actually delete apps from the iPhone itself. This is done via the Watch app which is built into the smartphone itself.
See Also: How to turn off iPhone 14 Pro’s always-on display
- Open the Watch App on the phone that is connected to the Apple Watch.
- From the landing page, scroll down to the bottom until you see the Installed apps in the Apple Watch.
- Tap on the app that you want to remove from the Apple Watch in the list that you see above.
- On the details page, you will see only one option which says Show App on the Apple Watch. This should be enabled because the app is still visible on the Apple Watch. All we have to do is to disable it.
- Once you disable it, the app will be removed from the Apple Watch. So, in case you want to install them again, go back to the Watch app main screen and look for Available Apps under the Installed on Apple Watch section.
- Find the app you want to install from the list and tap on the Install option next to it.
This is how you can successfully remove apps from your Apple Watch using two different methods. Now, these apps are mostly extensions of iPhone apps that are installed on the phone. But, nowadays watchOS allows apps to be built uniquely for the Apple Watch. So, if that’s the case then deleting from the Watch app might not be an option. Please check both ways in case one of them doesn’t work.
Personally, I don’t see myself using a lot of Apple Watch apps but I use the wearable mostly for fitness and notification purposes. But if you are someone who uses Apple Watch intensely, then you might find this article useful.