How to manually initiate temporary app removal for iOS update on iPhone

The topic is not about the storage, but about Temporary App Removal, why it doesnt always work, how much free space it needs to operate and if can it be triggered manually. So let us please not distract the discussion to different topics like storage, offloading apps, or low battery. My question is about how come 20 days ago Temporary App Removal was automatically triggered, when I had even less free space on the phone, while now it is not happening.

My question is can we initiate this process of temporary app removal manually

No, the iOS on the iPhone looks at the data on the phone and decides what it can and cannot do automatically.

If you are receiving a message that additional storage space will be required, the only way to try to fix this would to manually delete older photos, music, video, audio, email, etc files that you no longer need to create more open storage space on the iPhone.

In other words, the iOS cannot temporarily remove files automatically to allow the update to run.....because there is not enough free storage space on your iPhone. It could previously, but it cannot do this now.

Then, you will see the message that iOS will temporarily remove apps.....IF....enough see storage space has been created.

After the new update runs, you would want to check to make sure that you have at least 10G of unused space on the iPhone. Otherwise, you will run into more storage space problems in short order.....when the next update appears in a week or two.

Again, the topic I started is how temporary app remowal works.

So far, you helped by confirming this feature cannot be triggered manually, but only automatically by iPhone if there is enough free storage to run this operation, prior to installing the new update. Thank you for that.

Building on that, I conclude there is no official manual, statement, or description of how this feature works nor what are the conditions to have it automtically triggered.

I can only share woth the community my recent experience, from last night. With my free storage below 10GB, I got numerous notifications about an overdue update, but the Temporary App Removal was not triggered. As soon as I made free sligntly above 10GB od space, Temporary App Removal option was offered, and it enabled update installation although the phone required 13.29GB to perform the task. This brings me to a practical conclusion that minimum free space needed to automatically trigger Temporary App Removal is 10GB (or slightly more) and that maximum storage it can free up is around 3.5GB. This may of course depend on what kind og apps you have installed, how many of them are offloaded, how frequently you are using each of them, etc.

Would love to hear if anyone has any official confirmation about this presumption above, or could share a detailed experience of how this feature worked for them.

Please no off-topic advice.

Back to your original question, and then we are done.

How to manually initiate temporary app removal for iOS update on iPhone

We answered this in our first response, but you must have missed it.

This is not possible.

Updates cannot occur under a low battery condition.

It is also possible that the new update requires much more storage space than previous updates and the iPhone is not able to temporarily remove apps.

Fully charge the battery and make sure that the iPhone is connected via a good Wi-Fi connection. Then, give things another try.

Storage is perhaps the single most overlooked feature when people buy an iPhone. But it is one of the singular MOST important things to consider. The simple fact is you own an iPhone which doesn't meet your current storage needs. As Bob is trying to tell you, you're going to need to delete things from your phone, which you don't need or use, such as Photos, Apps, Music, Files, Email, Messages, etc.

Or, maybe it's time to buy a new iPhone which does meet your storage needs. Constantly struggling with storage is never going to go away when you don't have enough to begin with.

All new iPhone's Apple sells today, come with 256 GB. For me, even that isn't enough, so for the last couple generations of iPhone, I've been buying ones with 512 GB.

My question is can we initiate this process of temporary app removal manually, or it is triggered only atomatically by iPhone? Forget about the baterry - I tried this several times while the phone was fully charged or connected to a charger. Also, now I need around 3GB of extra space while last time I needed 10GB, so it is not about iPhone being less capable to remove and reupload apps now.

Thanks Bob. So the answer is: No.

You say "It could previously, but it cannot do this now." Why did Apple cancel this feature? Was it something imposed with the last software update? This is rather unfortunate, as it was a useful feature.

Btw, it was not conditioned by having enough free space (IF enough free space is created - as you say in your answer). To the contrary, it was apparently triggered automatically, specifically because there was not enough space to install an overdue update. Again, too bad it is no longer available. I see no reason to cancel this feature, other than to compel users to delete some files or buy extra storage.

You say "It could previously, but it cannot do this now." Why did Apple cancel this feature?

They didn't.

I tried to explain that the message is not appearing on your iPhone at this time because the iPhone does not have enough spare storage space for the feature / option to run.

I went on to say that when your iPhone does have enough open storage space, you will see that message appear again automatically.

In the meantime, you will continue to see a message that the iPhone cannot be updated because there is not enough open storage space.

Thanks again Bob for trying to explain this, but respectfully, this doesn't make no sense to me. If I had enough storage space to perform the installation, I wouldn't need to temporarily remove any apps, right?

If there is a threshold of how much free space this feature (Temporarily Remove Apps) needs in order to operate, and perform temporary app removal, that would be a useful information. Would be great if Apple could share it transparently.

IvanZJ wrote:

The topic is not about the storage, but about Temporary App Removal, why it doesnt always work, how much free space it needs to operate and if can it be triggered manually. So let us please not distract the discussion to different topics like storage, offloading apps, or low battery. My question is about how come 20 days ago Temporary App Removal was automatically triggered, when I had even less free space on the phone, while now it is not happening.

It really IS about storage. If you owned a phone with enough storage, you wouldn't be having the issue you're having. You can try to deflect the issue, but storage is your primary issue.

It's all about free storage space. You don't have anywhere near enough. 20 GB of free space would be recommended. More would be better.

We have tried....but have failed.....to explain that at this time your iPhone does not have enough free storage space to handle any kind of update.....automatic or with a manual option. We are done.

Perhaps another user will be able to explain this fact to you in a way that you will understand.

In the meantime, nothing will happen as far as updates on your iPhone.

The title of the topic I started clearly suggests it is not about the storage, but about a specific feature called Temporary App Removal. Trying to explain to me why I am interested in this feature, or what problem let me to ask about it, is still not answering the question raised by this topic, and is therefore irrelevant for this discussion. I do appreciate your effort, but would kindly ask you to stay on the topic, and share with the community anything you may know about how temporary app removal works. I am sure there are other discussions covering storage, issues related to it, or tips when purchasing new devices. Thank you very much.

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