How do I permanently delete stickers from my iPhone messages?

Tips
1

I accidentally added a bunch of stickers to my iPhone Messages and now they keep popping up in my sticker drawer. I can’t figure out how to fully remove or hide them, not just disable them temporarily. Can someone walk me through the steps to delete these stickers from my iPhone for good?

2

This trips a lot of people up because Messages treats stickers like “apps” in the Messages App Drawer, not like simple images.

Here is how you hide or remove them as much as iOS allows:

  1. Hide sticker packs from the Messages app drawer
    1. Open Messages.
    2. Open any conversation.
    3. Tap the plus button near the text field.
    4. Tap “More” or “More Apps” if you see it.
    5. Tap “Edit” in the top right.
    6. Turn off (toggle off) the sticker apps you do not want to see.
    7. You can also tap “Edit” again and remove them from “Favorites” so they do not stay pinned at the top.

This hides them from your drawer so they stop popping up every time.

  1. Delete third‑party sticker apps from your iPhone
    If the stickers came from apps you installed from the App Store:

    1. Go to the Home Screen.
    2. Find the sticker app icon.
    3. Tap and hold it.
    4. Tap “Remove App”, then “Delete App”.

Once you delete the app, its stickers disappear from Messages after a moment.

If the sticker pack does not show up as a separate app, open the App Store, go to your profile icon, then “Purchased”, look for the sticker app, and remove it from there if it still exists as an app.

  1. Built‑in Apple sticker packs, Memojis, emojis
    Those do not fully delete. Apple keeps them in the system. You can only push them out of the way:

    1. In the Messages “More” or “More Apps” list, unpin them from Favorites.
    2. Turn off any toggles that allow it.

They still exist, but they stop cluttering the main part of the drawer.

  1. Sticker packs from specific apps like Telegram, WhatsApp, etc.
    Those stay inside those apps. They do not have a system‑wide delete in iOS Messages. You manage them only in the app where you added them.

So, short version.
If it is a third‑party sticker app, delete the app.
If it is a Messages app, toggle it off in the Messages “More / Edit” screen.
If it is built‑in, you hide and unpin it, you do not fully remove it.

Apple loves keeping “fun” stuff in front of your face. You spend ten minutes cleaning it all up, then the next iOS update adds another random sticker thing back into the drawer.

3

You’ve basically discovered Apple’s little secret: “delete” for stickers often just means “go sit in the corner and pretend you’re gone.”

@cacadordeestrelas covered the normal app-drawer / delete-app approach pretty well, so I’ll skip rehashing all those taps. A few extra angles you might want to try:

1. Figure out what kind of sticker it is first

This actually matters:

  • If you can see it as an app icon on the Home Screen or App Library → it’s a full app with a sticker extension.
  • If you only ever see it inside Messages, in that new iOS 17 sticker sheet (where Live Stickers, emoji, etc. live) → it’s probably a “Saved” sticker or Live Sticker.
  • If it’s some ancient iMessage sticker pack from the old App Store-in-Messages days and doesn’t show on the Home Screen → it’s buried under Messages apps.

The reason you feel like you can’t “fully remove” some is because some categories literally cannot be wiped, only hidden.

2. For Live Stickers / Saved stickers (iOS 17+): actually delete the sticker itself

This is the bit most people miss, and it sounds closer to what you want than just hiding apps:

  1. Open Messages.
  2. In a conversation, tap the plus button next to the text box.
  3. Tap Stickers (the sticker icon).
  4. Go to Recents or the specific sticker pack section where you keep seeing those custom stickers.
  5. Long-press on the offending sticker until a menu pops up.
  6. Look for something like Delete, Remove, or a little info / “i” button → from there delete the custom sticker.

If the stickers came from you long-pressing photos and creating Live Stickers, you can nuke them from the Photos app too:

  1. Open Photos.
  2. Find the original photo you used to make the sticker.
  3. Long-press the subject again.
  4. Tap Sticker or Add Sticker options, then manage/remove from the sticker set from there, depending on your iOS version.

This is closer to “permanent” than just turning off a Messages app, because you’re deleting the actual sticker asset.

3. For old iMessage sticker packs that don’t show as apps

Sometimes you have sticker packs that:

  • Don’t appear on the Home Screen
  • Don’t show clearly in the normal App Store as apps

You can dig a bit deeper:

  1. Open App Store.
  2. Tap your profile picture top right.
  3. Go to Purchased → My Purchases.
  4. Scroll through and look for any “Sticker Pack” or “for iMessage” type entries.
  5. If they’re still installed, you might see an Open button or they might show as part of a container app you forgot you installed.
  6. Open that container app and check its settings. Some let you disable or even remove their Messages extension from inside the app.

If you can actually delete the container app, that’s the only real way to get “true” removal for those.

4. Sync issues: make sure iCloud isn’t re-adding stuff

This is a fun one: you hide / delete an app on one device, but it keeps reappearing on another and syncing back.

If you use multiple Apple devices:

  1. On each device, open Messages and repeat the “More / Edit / toggle off” routine that @cacadordeestrelas mentioned.
  2. Make sure the associated app is removed on all devices logged into your Apple ID.
  3. In Settings → App Store, check Automatic Downloads. If Apps is on, it can reinstall apps (and therefore their stickers) from other devices.

Not exactly “permanent delete,” but it stops the zombie-respawn effect.

5. Reality check: what you cannot truly delete

You can’t permanently erase:

  • Emoji
  • Standard Apple stickers / Memojis / Live emoji stuff
  • Some system sticker collections tied to the OS

You can only:

  • Unpin them
  • Push them out of the main view
  • Turn off what limited toggles Apple exposes

So if some of what’s annoying you is Apple’s own cute garbage, you’re stuck with “get it out of my face” rather than “burn it with fire.”

TL;DR with the “more permanent” angle

  • Third‑party sticker apps → uninstall the actual app and check all your devices.
  • Custom / Live Stickers → long-press inside the sticker picker and delete the sticker itself.
  • Old iMessage-only packs → hunt them down in App Store → Purchased and kill the container app if it exists.
  • Apple’s built-ins → you cannot permanently delete, only hide/unpin, no matter what any setting pretends to say.

So if by “permanently” you mean “never see them again, ever, under any menu,” Apple basically said “nope” for their own stuff. For third‑party and custom stickers, though, you can actually remove the assets, not just toggle visibility.