iOS 18.4 Bug Seemingly Resurrects Previously Deleted iPhone Apps

Apple's latest iOS 18.4 software update appears to be causing long-deleted apps to reappear on some users' iPhones, based on corroborating reports on forums and social media.

Generic iOS 18
Several Reddit threads (1,2,3,4) and posts on Apple's Community Support pages over the last 24 hours are filled with reports from users who, after having updated to iOS 18.4, immediately discovered third-party apps and/or games installed on their device that were not there before.

Going on the reports, the iOS 18.4 update has manifested a bug that is causing apps to reappear – since in most cases it appears that the apps had been deleted by the users months or even years ago and long forgotten. Apple released iOS 18.4 on Monday.

The behavior doesn't seem to be related to Apple's Automatic Downloads option either. The setting enables automatic downloads of apps purchased on other Apple devices. However, many affected users say they do not own another Apple device.

Likewise, the bug is impacting users with devices that have never been jailbroken and have never used an alternative marketplace outside of the App Store.

It's not clear how prevalent the glitch is, but not everyone is affected, suggesting it could be related to location or device model. As it stands, the current solution for affected users is just to re-delete the reappearing app while we await further details around the issue.

(Thanks, Tanner!)

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Top Rated Comments

MartyMcfly88 Avatar
3 weeks ago
Whoever is in charge of software updates needs replacing. Compared to my Android devices, iOS and MacOS has been one bin fire of frozen apps, closing apps and other issues after another.

Get your act together Apple. Not good enough for a $3 trillion business.
Score: 32 Votes (Like | Disagree)
klasma Avatar
3 weeks ago
It’d be nice if 32-bit apps would get resurrected again as well. ?
Score: 28 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TechWhisperer Avatar
3 weeks ago
Is Apple morphing into a high-tech illusion?

First, deleted photos rise from the dead and now deleted apps are clawing their way back too? Lmao!
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
fockx Avatar
3 weeks ago
If only they could resurrect the previous version of the Plex app.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AMTYVLE Avatar
3 weeks ago
I didn’t see this happen on my iPhone, but it happened on my Apple TV 4K after updating to tvOS 18.4. Apps I deleted years ago were on the Home Screen…which I had to re-delete. Strange as it only happened on one of my Apple TVs, not both.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DBZmusicboy01 Avatar
3 weeks ago
iOS 18 is the absolute worst iOS version in history. Not even the latest 16 Pros are able to handle it smoothly. Insane amount of bugs and terrible battery along with Bluetooth and WiFi having issues even in previous iPhone models that worked perfectly fine on older software.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)