How To Hide Purchased Apps on iPhone and iTunes

In early June, Apple updated the iTunes App Store and introduced you the purchase history. You can make use of it for viewing all your purchased apps, as well as, re-downloading them. Quite a number of readers have raised the concern about privacy as they used to share the same Apple ID with their family members. One of the common questions is how you can remove the apps from the purchase history.

Along with the release of iOS 5, Apple has updated the iTunes App Store and allows you to hide any apps in your purchase history. There are two ways to hide the apps. You can either do it on iPhone (or iPad) or simply remove the apps using iTunes.

Hide Purchased Apps using iPhone

To hide a purchased app using iPhone, tap “App Store” and select the “Updates” tab. Tap “Purchased” to view your purchase history.

From here, pick any app you want to remove from the history. Swipe your finger from left to right on the selected app and tap the “Hide” button to remove the app.

Hide Purchased Apps using iTunes

Alternatively, you can hide the purchased apps on iTunes. First, go to the iTunes App Store. Under the Quick links section, select “Purchased”. You’ll be prompted to log-in with your iTunes account.

Once you’re authenticated, iTunes shows you the history of all your purchased apps. As you move the mouse cursor over any of the app icons, you should notice a cross appeared at the corner of the icon. Just click on the cross to hide the app.

View Hidden Purchases and Unhide the Apps

You can always unhide the apps and make them appear in the purchase history again. In iTunes, click on your account to access the account information. In the “iTunes in the Cloud” section, click “View Hidden Purchases”.

From here, you can click on the “Unhide” button to add the app back to the purchase history.

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