Deleting stock Apple apps on iOS - any drawbacks?

Tech Support
1

Are there any drawbacks to deleting stock Apple apps on iOS?

I’m specifically thinking about Notes.app, Calendar.app, Stocks.app

I’m thinking that for example deleting the stock Calendar.app from iOS will make it more difficult to add events directly from emails, or am I mistaken?

2

Because stock apps are part of the system bundle — some of them are deeply integrated with Siri, in fact — when you delete them, they aren’t actually removed — they’re just being hidden from the home screen. So deleting them does not save you storage. As Apple notes, “all of them together use less than 200MB. Removing built-in iOS apps doesn’t free up storage space on your device.”

Therefore I’d just recommend creating a “SystemJunk” folder, tossing in unwanted stock apps, and putting the folder far away from your regularly-used apps.

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3

Thanks. It’s not really due to space… I just like to keep my iOS devices lean of apps that I don’t use

4

My attitude is that if they’re going to be there anyway I’d rather hide them in a folder so I could get to them if I ever wanted, instead of having them remain but need to ‘re-download’ is I ever wanted to use them.

Putting them away on a secondary or tertiary page is the difference between having them in one single folder, out of the way, and having them hidden but still there (and perhaps needing to re-download later). No reason not to keep them.

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5

The one drawback I’ve found is I almost immediately put them back.

For me the stock apps are the litmus test for any other app.

If I download an app and do not re vert to the apple apps within a year, then I can “delete” the stock app.

So far: it’s never happened…

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6

I have a folder uniquely titled Apple Apps which I drop all the stock apps into. It hides them from view but I do use Calendar in particular for Siri integration so I don’t delete them.

The exception is Stocks. Don’t use it, have opened it once in the ten years since I first bought an iOS device, so I delete it.

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7

I know you did not specifically ask for it, but Mail.app is important to open mailto: links. Once removed, you can’t tab those links and start sending an email.

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