The Best Time to Cancel Your App Subscription Is Immediately
Subscriptions have taken over the Apple App Store—perhaps the easiest way to make money from iPhone users . Even award-winning apps sometimes won’t let you use any features unless you sign up for a free trial with an auto-renewing subscription. Once you sign up for a trial, it’s easy to forget to cancel, and those costs add up quickly . Luckily, there are easy ways to avoid paying for unwanted subscriptions on the App Store.
Cancel your subscription immediately
Once you sign up for a free trial of any app, you can immediately go to the App Store and cancel your subscription . In most cases, you will be able to use the app until the free trial expires; the subscription will not be renewed automatically. Apple’s own subscriptions like iCloud or Apple Music are notable exceptions: the free trial ends as soon as you cancel them.
Luckily, you can check in advance whether the trial ends immediately or will run until the end of the period. Click Subscriptions , select the one you want to cancel, and click Cancel Subscription . You will now see a pop-up window informing you that your subscription has expired. If this date coincides with the end of your free trial, click Confirm to cancel your subscription.
Use Siri shortcuts to remind yourself to unsubscribe
If you still forget to cancel your free trials, you can set up automatic reminders to help you with this task, thanks to a great shortcut from Matthew Cassinelli . You’ll need to install the Apple Shortcuts app and then download the Cassinelli Check My App Subscriptions shortcut.
This shortcut allows you to directly open the App Store subscriptions page with one tap. You can add a shortcut to your home screen and run it periodically to check your subscriptions, or set a recurring reminder to run the shortcut. For a reminder, you should open the Shortcuts app and tap the three dots icon next to that shortcut. Now press and hold the side button on your iPhone to launch Siri and say, “Remind me about this.”
Siri will create a reminder for this shortcut. Open the Reminders app, tap that reminder, and tap the i icon on the right. You can set the date, time and click “Repeat” . Select a schedule for this reminder, such as Weekly or Monthly , and click Done . That’s all! You now have a recurring reminder that will allow you to quickly open the App Store subscriptions page and continue canceling subscriptions you don’t use.