find ios app purchases
Apps iPhone Phones Software

How do I find my iOS app purchases?

I recently needed to find an iPad app that I knew I’d installed a few years ago but had long since deleted. If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, the obvious question is whether there’s a way to find iOS apps that you’ve used, particularly if you purchased them?

As with most rhetorical questions in articles, the answer is “yes”.

How to find the Purchases page

  • On your device (iPhone or iPad), head into the App Store
  • If you’re using iOS 11 or greater, ensure you’re in the “Today” tab…
find ios app purchases
  • If you’re using iOS 10 or lesser, ensure you’re in the “Updates” tab
  • (Not sure which version of iOS you’re using? Read our article covering this topic here.)
  • In the top right-hand corner, you should see your profile picture. Tap on it
  • You will now see your Account details. Just under your profile picture you should see the option “Purchased”. Select this…
find ios app purchases

How to use the Purchases page

  • If you have a family account set up, you’ll be prompted as to whether you want to see your own purchases or any of those from your family
  • You’ll now be presented with a searchable list of all the apps that you’ve “purchased” (whether free or otherwise). From here you can re-download them or head into the app details for further information.
find ios app purchases

There are also two tabs at the top – “All” (the default) and “Not on this x”, where x is the device you’re currently using. This makes it easy to find any apps not currently installed.

Read this next: How long should an iPhone last?

About the author

David Artiss

Works for Automattic Inc., the company behind WordPress.com and Tumblr. Tech geek, international speaker and occasional PC Pro podcaster. Lover of Lego and video games.

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