Summary: A weird iOS 18.4 bug is causing deleted apps to randomly reinstall themselves on iPhones, sometimes even apps that users claim they never downloaded. Multiple reports from Reddit and Apple’s Community page confirm the issue, affecting non-jailbroken devices with no third-party app stores involved. Apple hasn’t responded yet, but users can temporarily fix it by deleting the reinstalled apps again.
We delete apps from our phones because we either no longer need them or we need to free up space. It is safe to assume that when we delete an app, it stays deleted, right? Unfortunately, iPhone users with iOS 18.4 installed are running into a weird bug that is resurrecting apps that were previously deleted.
It lives again!
Several reports from Apple’s Community page and Reddit show users complaining about apps reinstalling by themselves after being deleted. This seems to affect users with the latest iOS 18.4 update installed on their iPhones.
According to Redditor MoistCombination1991, “Okay so after updating to ios 18.4 successfully, I went to the app store to update apps. And to my surprise this Chinese game install itself automatically. How is it possible? And also I turn OFF automatic updates and install in appstore when I first got my phone last year.”
This echoes a similar complaint on Apple’s Community page by Someandroiduser who writes, “After upgrading to iOS 18.4, my iPhone randomly installed “Last war survival”. This app was previously installed on my iPhone a few months ago but uninstalled after a few hours. Now it appeared back on my Home Screen.”
The bug may be even installing apps the user never downloaded, making it worse. This is according to a comment by dwa170 who says, “Yeah I had nba 2k25 randomly download, and yet I’m certain that I’ve never installed the app previously.”
Un-jailbroken devices
One reply to the post on Apple’s Community page suggests that this could due to the user using a jailbroken device. However, according to all the posts, none of the devices affected are jailbroken. These users also claim that they never used a third-party app store other than Apple’s own App Store.
This is quite concerning, but it is fixable. All users need to do is delete the app that reinstalled itself and they are good to go. However, we’re not sure what are the chances of it happening again. So users will need to keep an eye out for it.
Apple hasn’t responded to the issue yet, and we’re not sure how widespread it is either. Hopefully, Apple is at least aware of it and that a fix is on its way.
