Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Audio / Video
  3. Guides

How to delete apps on an LG smart TV

Tyler Lacoma
By

LG’s smart TVs use the proprietary webOS platform that you likely know and (maybe) love. If you’ve ever turned yours on to explore settings and menus, you will have noticed that the webOS platform is sleek and easy to learn, with app icons arranged at the bottom for speedy shuffling with the remote arrow moved by your controller.

Recommended Videos

Difficulty

Easy

Duration

10 minutes

What You Need

  • LG smart TV

WebOS allows you to download all kinds of apps, including your favorite streaming apps like Netflix, news apps, YouTube, and more. But there’s a small problem: As the apps you use mount up, it gets harder to manage that shuffling menu, which can grow crowded and difficult to use. If you download too many apps altogether, the smart TV will start to show an out-of-memory warning, and you won’t be able to download anything new. The solution? Offload some of the unused apps to clear up some space: Here’s how you can delete apps on an LG smart TV.

Further reading on LG TVs

How to delete apps on your LG TV

Before you begin, it’s a good idea to update your LG TV to the latest version that your TV model will support. We have a guide that can help you through the steps, but updating is usually very easy and will only take several minutes if there are any updates available.

Step 1: Turn on your LG TV. Using your LG remote, select the Home or Recents button – it’s typically the button marked with a house-like logo. This should bring up your app menu at the bottom of the screen.

Step 2: Using your remote pointer, move right through the list of your apps so that you shuffle all the way to the very end of the app list. Once you reach the end, you should see a white bar or square with an icon that looks like a marker or pencil. Select it.

Note: Your interface will look a little different depending on the version of webOS that you have. Some versions are a bit more minimal, while the newer versions have somewhat larger icons. But the general navigation and instructions should be just about identical.

LG WebOS Edit Apps tab.
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Related

Step 3: LG’s webOS platform will now bring up the app-editing screen to let you know that you are in editing mode. Here, you can manually choose an app by pushing the Center button on your control wheel and moving it to whatever position you want. But if you need to clear some space by deleting apps, that’s not quite enough.

As you hover over apps to choose, you’ll see that some apps will show a small “X” or trash can above the app icon. This symbol will not appear on LG’s own apps for settings and management – you can’t delete those at all. But any third-party apps that you have on your TV should show an "X" or a trash can.

Hover your pointer over the X/trash can (on some versions of webOS, a small, sad skull face will appear when you’re in the right spot), and select it with your Center button. Confirm that you want to delete the app.

LG TV WebOS 3 Delete App option.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Step 4: Generally, it’s a good idea to start by deleting the third-party apps that you don’t even recognize, as these are the least-needed versions. A certain number of third-party apps come preloaded on LG smart TVs, so there are probably some you’ve never used. After that, choose the apps that you don’t use much or that you can load from other streaming devices instead, like an Apple TV, a console, or a dongle connected to your LG TV.

LG Webos Intelligent Apps.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Turning on intelligent edit on your LG TV

If you have one of the newest versions of webOS available on LG TVs that are just a few years old or so, you may find that you have an additional option: When selecting the white Editing icon from your app list, you may see a way to enable something called Intelligent Edit.

Intelligent Edit will automatically rearrange your apps to put those that you use the most in the front, so you won’t have to shuffle to the back of the menu to find them. If that’s the only thing that’s really bothering you, you can turn on Intelligent Edit without deleting anything, and it may fix your problem.

The only issue you may run into is on a new LG TV, where Intelligent Edit will tell you that it doesn’t have enough app usage history to reorder your apps in any particular way. But keep it in mind for later use if things ever start to get cluttered.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Tyler Lacoma
Tyler Lacoma
Contributor
If it can be streamed, voice-activated, made better with an app, or beaten by mashing buttons, Tyler's into it. When he's not…
This LG 65-inch OLED 4K TV is $1,100 off for a limited time
The LG B3 Series OLED 4K TV in the living room.

Today at Best Buy you can save big on a great TV for watching the best new movies on Netflix, Hulu, Prime, Max, and more. The 64-inch model of the LG b# series OLED 4K TV is seeing a massive discount of $1,100. This brings its price down from $2,400 to a sale price of just $1,300. This is one of the better TV deals we’ve found, and it even includes three free months of Apple TV+ and 30 days of free FuboTV service. Free shipping also comes with a purchase.

Why you should buy the 65-inch LG B3 Series OLED 4K TV
OLED technology provides one of the best images you’ll find in a TV. They create lifelike images by way of self-lit pixels, and this 65-inch model of the LG B3 series OLED 4K TV offers plenty of screen to get lost in. It offers an incredibly immersive experience whether you’re watching movies, enjoying a sports event, or doing some gaming. It has a Filmmaker Mode that presents movies exactly the way the filmmakers intended, and it also has an AI processor to automatically detect what kind of content you’re watching and improve its quality accordingly. This processor is also responsible for upscaling older content, ensuring everything you watch comes through in the modern 4K resolution standard.

Read more
How to set up the TCL Q6 Google TV
A setup screen on the TCL Q6 television allowing you to choose Google TV or a basic TV mode.

The TCL Q6 is an intriguing television. It's a very affordable QLED TV, even at its larger sizes. And it's a Google TV — that is, it's powered by the Google TV operating system, so you may well find that it has everything you could want to run on it already built in, negating the need for any other hardware like a streaming device.

Read more
Dreaming of a big TV? This 86-inch LG 4K TV is under $1,000 today
LG UN7000 Series 5-Inch 4K Smart TV

For families who've always wanted a massive TV in their living room, don't miss this chance to get the 86-inch LG UR7800 4K TV for less than $1,000 from Best Buy. Instead of $1,250, you'll only have to pay $900, for savings of $350. Opportunities like this don't happen often, so if you're interested, you shouldn't hesitate to complete the transaction. Get this large screen for cheaper than usual by proceeding with the purchase right now, because if you wait until tomorrow, its price may be back to normal.

Why you should buy the 86-inch LG UR7800 4K TV
Before buying the 86-inch LG UR7800 4K TV, you should first make sure that you've got enough space for it by consulting our guide on what size TV to buy. Once you've confirmed that you do, then you can go ahead with your purchase with confidence, as it's made by one of the best TV brands. With 4K Ultra HD resolution, you'll be watching your favorite shows and movies with sharp details and vivid colors, and with LG's a5 AI Processor Gen 6, color and contrast will automatically be adjusted to optimal settings depending on ambient light.

Read more