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A CONFUSED iPhone owner found that the option to start a FaceTime call had vanished completely.
Fans quickly revealed what had gone wrong – and the same thing could happen to you, if you’re not careful.
Offload Unused Apps is an easy way to instantly free up device storage – but it can have some odd side-effects[/caption]
FaceTime is an official Apple app, and it comes installed on every iPhone as standard.
There are shortcuts to FaceTime inside the Contacts app so that you can quickly use it.
One user posting to Reddit made a thread titled: “FaceTime option completely gone from my iPhone”.
They added: “My mom called and yelled today because I never FaceTime her, and when I went to try I saw there was no option for it.”
Fellow iPhone owners were quick to point out that the icon in Contacts disappearing meant that FaceTime had been deleted.
The user posted: “You are 100% right. I didn’t even know there was an app and it didn’t occur to me because I never use it.
They added: “It must have been deleted by lack of use. I don’t delete anything and I didn’t even know it existed.”
This might sound odd, but it is possible for apps to be removed from lack of use.
Offload Unused Apps on iPhone
It’s linked to an iOS feature called Offload Unused Apps.
You can find this in Settings > General > iPhone Storage.
Once you navigate there, you should see a feature that lets you free up a lot of space by activating “offloading”.
Apple explains: “Automatically offload unused apps when you’re low on storage. Your documents and data will be saved.”
If you haven’t used an app for a while, it’ll be “offloaded”.
If your iPhone is missing an app, there’s a setting you should check first[/caption]
You can reinstall it again at any time – and all of the associated documents and data will have been preserved.
But the app itself will need to be redownloaded to your iPhone.
So if you have this setting active, you might find yourself having to wait when it comes to using an app that you’ve ignored for a long time.
However, you can free up significant amounts of storage space by leaving Offload Unused Apps active.
iPhone tricks to try today
Here are some of the best…
- Typing cursor – When typing, hold down the space bar to turn your keyboard into a trackpad, letting you move around words and sentences more easily
- Close all Safari tabs – To do this in one go, simply hold the overlapped squares in the bottom right-hand corner, and press close all tabs
- Delete lots of photos quickly – Hold down on a photo and then drag your finger diagonally in Photos to select lots of images at once, then hit delete
- Convert currency quickly – Swipe down from the top of your Home screen, then tap in the bar and type a currency (like €200) and it will automatically covert to your local currency
- Check if you’re due a battery upgrade – Batteries inside smartphones degrade over time. Just go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health, and check out the Maximum Capacity reading. Generally a battery is considered worn when you’re down to 80% capacity. If you’re below, you can buy a battery swap from Apple
- Move apps around faster – Hold an app until it starts wiggling, then (while still holding) tap other apps, causing them to stack so you can move them around easier
The amount that is freed up depends on how many apps you have installed – and which of them you’re using regularly, or not at all.
You can also deactivate the feature at any time if you decide that it’s not working well for you.
