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I have over 200 apps on my iPhone 4 (32GB). No one needs that many apps, right? I want to organize my installed apps based on how frequently I use them, and/or how recently I last used them. I could probably take a qualitative, subjective stab at this myself, but I'd like to have some data, just so I don't toss an app that I may have used, but don't remember using. Yeah, I know that deleting isn't forever with apps-- but having geeky data makes me feel good.

So far, I have not found a way to do this. I've seen apps mentioned here on AskDifferent that purport to do such a thing, but have not tried any of them. For some reason, I seem to recall Googling this several months ago, and running across an article describing a way to glean usage information from the backup file(s) that iTunes creates. I can no longer find that article-- not sure if it's gone or if I'm just not using the same search terms as before.

Note that my iPhone is not jailbroken, nor do I wish to jail-break it. I'm not necessarily even interested in an iOS app that gets me this information; I'm simply interested in it any way that it can be had. If that is via Terminal on the desktop, that's fine.

Knowing this kind of usage information would also be objectively useful if I'm trying to implement some kind of app/folder organizational strategy. Otherwise, I'm left to my own intuition about how often I use things, which can be false, or in the least, inefficient.

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    No, nobody needs that many apps, but really, nobody actually needs more than a handful of apps to get the job done. I'm a bit of a packrat myself when it comes to apps, and I've got an entire page full of folders that are chock full of apps that I never really touch. That being said, if you're not at a memory shortage because of your apps, is it really important to get rid of them? In most cases, it's a lot easier to have them and not need them, than to need them and not have them—especially if they're more than can download over a cellular connection!
    – Terrance Shaw
    Commented Nov 3, 2012 at 21:14
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    @TerranceShaw Very true. I'm certainly not short of storage with a 32-GB device, but I'm wondering if I could get by with a 16-GB-- I have ~20-GB of usage now, so I'm guessing I couldn't squeak by... but I'd rather just "know", you know? I totally agree with "...easier to have them and not need them...", though!
    – PattMauler
    Commented Nov 4, 2012 at 15:08

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I'm sure people have probably realized now how to get around-about-answer on this subject but I have been searching for an answer for an hour and figured out a way to kind of get an answer. If you have iOS 8 (now that this post is years after the original question..)

Settings > General > Usage > Battery Usage

And you can see which apps have used the most battery power in the last 24 hours, and also in the last 7 days. Which answered my question! Hope this helps someone.

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I think I may have found an astoundingly low-tech solution to this problem, and it was right under my nose.

Ever since iOS became "multi-tasking" capable (I say that tongue-in-cheek, as we all know that most apps that get backgrounded aren't still running, they've just had their state saved until used again), the Task Switcher, accessible via a double-press of the Home Button, shows you a more-or-less "use-ordered" list of your apps. Unless you deliberately open the Task Switcher and kill the apps, they linger in there... I guess forever, or until you reboot the device.

So, if I clear all those out, and then just go about my business using my device for a while, and occasionally look at what apps are in my first 3 or 4 "pages" in the Task Switcher, that gives me a decent idea of which apps I use the most-- or at least can tell me the ones that I've used "most recently". Those apps that are on the far right "page" of Task Switcher are the least used (or at least the ones that were used "least recently").

EDIT: As of iOS9, the order of applications displayed in the Task Switcher is reversed. The most recently foregrounded app is on the far right.

I suppose a person could extend this into a true exercise in statistical geekery by noting the order of the apps on a schedule... say every morning or every evening (or more or less often)... over a period of time; a week, a month, whatever. Then you could compile that into useful info for yourself.

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This is available in IOS 9.2

Just discovered after reading this list that if you do as previously suggested

Settings > General > Usage > Battery Usage

and tap within the list. Then each entry will display hours of on screen use and hours of background use, as well as the overall percentage. It works within the 24 hours view and the Last 7 Days view.

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  • Yes this is good. Except the list is ordered by battery usage and stops listing apps that have used less than 1% battery, even if they have significant screen time. But if you were nerdy enough to collect this data over several days, you might end up capturing enough to satisfy your data hunger. One app on the App Store collects this data: App Usage Tracker. Except you have take a screenshot of that battery page. So obviously Apple don’t provide an API to that data. That app is $2.99 (Australian) so definitely not worth the hassle.
    – lukejanicke
    Commented Oct 28, 2017 at 7:41
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To my knowledge there's no way to do this without jail breaking (I'm not sure there is even if you do jailbreak).

Because iOS apps essentially don't run in the background (with exceptions for specific types of apps — i.e. navigation and music players), as soon as you open another app, they have to shut down, and thus have no way of monitoring what's else is going on. Additionally, the sandboxing enforced on iOS apps (at least in the App Store) restricts what system information they know. Even if it were able to monitor in the background, an app shouldn't be able to access information about other running apps.

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  • I'm not necessarily interested in an app that mines this information; if it can be had that way, that's fine, but I understand what you're saying about the sandboxing. And, I'm not really interested in "how long I played Angry Birds last Tuesday", but rather "I opened Angry Birds last Tuesday." For some reason, I feel like I read something that this type of logged information is kept (albeit encrypted perhaps?) in the backup that iTunes keeps of the device? Like I said, I can't re-find that information on the web now.
    – PattMauler
    Commented Nov 4, 2012 at 15:17
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Hooked - App Habit Tracker en App Store - iTunes - Apple https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hooked-app-habit-tracker/id966290813?l=es&mt=8

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    Welcome to Ask Different! We're trying to find the best answers and those answers will provide info as to why they're the best. Explain why you think the link you provided will answer the question, don't just post a link. See How to Answer on how to provide a quality answer. - From Review
    – fsb
    Commented Dec 7, 2016 at 15:57
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There is an app called Hooked that I use to track app usage to help me stay productive. It tracks app usage.

While battery usage is a helpful general guide, it's very misleading as something like watching videos or playing games uses far more battery life than texting. But you might be using texting far more often than playing a battery-killing game.

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  • This is a good answer, but it's much more helpful if you provide the link to the app you are referencing.
    – Allan
    Commented Aug 16, 2016 at 15:08

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