Stickers piled up on my iPhone over the last year. Some were from Messages, some from third-party sticker packs, and a few I made myself from photos. The whole sheet got cluttered fast. Deleting them is easy once you know where Apple hid the buttons.
Here are the four ways I actually use to clean them up. Pick whichever fits the sticker type.
Delete stickers from the Messages sticker drawer
This is the most common case. You open a chat, tap the plus icon, swipe to Stickers, and see your whole collection. To delete one, just long-press the sticker until a menu appears, then tap Delete. Done.
You can also tap the small plus button inside that drawer to reorder or remove multiple stickers at once. iOS calls this the sticker tray and it's the same one that holds your custom-made stickers from photos.
Remove a sticker pack you installed
Some stickers come as full app packs from the App Store. Those need to be deleted like apps. Find the sticker pack on your Home Screen or in the App Library, long-press the icon, and pick Delete App.
If you don't see it on the Home Screen, here's the path:
- Open Settings then go to General
- Tap iPhone Storage
- Scroll to the sticker pack name in the app list
- Tap it and hit Delete App
- Confirm when prompted and you're done
Delete custom stickers you made from photos
iOS lets you turn any photo subject into a sticker. Tap and hold the subject, lift, save. Easy. But these custom stickers live inside the Messages sticker tray and they need to be deleted from there.
Open any chat, tap the plus icon, choose Stickers, then long-press your custom sticker. A red Delete option appears. Tap it. Sticker gone, photo stays.
Clear stickers from third-party keyboards
If you use a keyboard like Bitmoji or Gboard, stickers might be stored inside those apps. Open the specific app, dig into its sticker section, and look for an edit or delete option. Each app handles this differently so there's no one-size answer.
Pro tip – if you can't find the delete button, uninstalling and reinstalling the keyboard app resets everything.
What if delete doesn't work?
Sometimes the long-press menu doesn't show a delete option. That usually means the sticker is part of a downloaded pack and needs to be removed by uninstalling the parent app. Check the App Store for any installed sticker apps and remove them from there.
Restarting your iPhone helps too if the sticker drawer freezes or behaves weirdly. Have you found a sticker you can't get rid of? Drop the name in the comments and I'll check it.