Apple - How can I remove this half-downloaded app from my iPhone?

Reboot.

I had an app stuck in the Loading... state and a reboot of my iPhone cleared it away. I was able to re-download it again without any issues.

To reboot your phone hold down the Power button for 5 seconds. You'll see the power off slider appear. Slide it to turn the phone off. Once off, use the Power button to turn it back on.


One way is to tap on the app icon once you're connected to a WiFi hotstop. This will start/resume the download. Once the app is being shown as "loading", just tap it again to remove from it's limbo state and move to paused state. This will allow you to hit the X when you are in the move/delete mode.

Sadly, a total restore and set up of your device as new will always work at the cost of your time to re-configure all of the sync settings. Unless each app has an export/import or cloud sync ability, you could lose progress or data from other apps, so it's a very broad hammer for a narrow problem.


Several other questions here might help, but none seem to be totally equivalent.

  • How can I cancel an app installation on the iPhone?
  • App stuck while downloading at stage of 2%

This is an absolute nightmare when you get it. I can you tell you roughly what I did to get it resolved but YMMV.

  1. Download the app in iTunes
  2. Hook your iPhone up and tell the app to copy
  3. Unplug, switch on flight mode, reboot
  4. Now it's rebooted in flight mode it'll stop itunes from trying to download
  5. Sync your iPhone, it should copy it and override the OTA iTunes download

Note, I went through a week and a half of trying things so there might be pre-steps but those are the ones that led up to it being fixed.