Ask Tii - Help me get back my deleted iOS Apps

Hi Rob,

Like you I have a couple of young boys.  Recently it appears one of them deleted my safari App and my Youtube App off the iPhone.

FYI - I do not have my phone full of Apps (so it is not off the screen) and I only have a couple of folders and I checked in them and the Safari and Youtube apps are nowhere to be found.  

I tried rebooting and doing multiple re-syncs but could not find either app in iTunes to add back said apps.  Outside of doing a factory restore what can I do?

Please help.

Thanks

James

 

Hi James,

First off Safari and Youtube are not apps you can delete.  

So if they are not in a folder - then it sounds like restrictions are turned on for them.

Go to Settings --> General --> Restrictions  

And then see if restrictions are turned on or off for Safari and Youtube.

Also while you are there you may want to turn "Deleting Apps" to the "Off" setting to keep your boys from deleting any other apps.

Now there is one thing you might face and that is when you go into "Restrictions" it will ask for a passcode.  If you had not used restrictions before - it is likely one of your boys set it up by accident and I hope they are old enough to remember the passcode.  If not you will be doing that factory restore you were trying to avoid. 

Which for others is a good reason why if you have kids it is recommended you turn on "Restrictions" for one item - like "Ping" - just so you are able to set up the passcode.  

Good luck.

Rob W