Brave won't download in my iPhone App Store

Brave Browser Mobile Support
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1

Description of the issue: Cannot re-download Brave on iPhone 15 Pro after restored phone during update to iOS 26.2 and finished update afterward. Brave shows it won’t launch unless I update it but when I go to the iphone App Store it is unresponsive to attempts to download/update.

How can this issue be reproduced?

  1. I kept going to the App Store to download it.

Expected result:

Brave Version( check About Brave): Can’t see until I can update it again.

Mobile Device details iPhone 15 Pro with iOS 26.2 recently put on it.

Additional Information: It is really upsetting that things like Brave can’t be put back on easily since this happened Friday night.

2

@Elsie

In the Files.app directory, locate the Brave folder (if available) and back up that folder (example).

Screen Shot 2025-12-19 at 4.18.31 AM
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You can make a new folder at the same level, within the Files.app directory . . . name the new folder something like: Brave_bkup_fldr . . . and copy the Brave folder items to that. Or, possibly duplicate the Brave folder. Or, both.

You can also connect via cable, from iPhone to “mothership computer” and manually copy files from the Brave folder.

The general idea, with the above steps to safely store your data, is that you have been backing up (exporting) your bookmarks to bookmarks.html files and storing those in the Brave folder . . . yes?

After that preparation, completely remove the Brave Browser from your iPhone. Followed by a complete, Power Off shut down of your iPhone:

Apple iOS - iPhone - completely quit an app:
-https://support.apple.com/en-us/109359

Apple iOS - iPhone - soft restart - steps to reveal the Power Off slider:
-https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/turn-iphone-on-or-off-iph841379c3d/ios

Apple iOS - iPhone - complete, “forced”, “hard” restart:
-https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/force-restart-iphone-iph8903c3ee6/ios

Be sure to let the iPhone just sit there after that shut down, for at least 30 seconds.

Then start up the iPhone and try to download the Brave Browser installer from Apple’s App Store. You might find some info that indicates where there is a problem in the recording of the Brave Browser app’s installation status - learn how to find iOS info re the browser:

How to collect: Brave Browser (iOS) crash / diagnostic info:

Brave keeps closing browsing windows on iOS - #2 by steeven

Note, that you would be sending the Brave Browser (iOS) crash report information that you gathered, to e-mail address: user-support@brave.com

Helpful Info & FAQ for Brave Users - #44 by Saoiray

How I used that information:

Brave keeps closing browsing windows on iOS - #7 by 289wk

Include in your follow-up post:

  • the e-mail message’s Subject
  • date and time when you sent the message
  • name of the file that you attached to the message
  • URL address of your Original Post
3

Hello - Are you still having trouble installing Brave?

Can you confirm the following?

  • Does the app store says get / update / etc (ex does App Store think the app is installed)?

  • Does Brave show up if you search on the home screen (pull down on home screen to reveal search), or in App Library?

Thanks!

4

I have no idea what you mean by files.APP. I don’t know anything about folders like that on an iPhone.

5

Your email people said it’s a iOS 26.2 issue for the App Store. And I’m supposed to restart the phone and reinstall but I’m also at the moment dealing with something else with the phone and I’ll restart it again later. I don’t think that is going to do anything anyway because I’m sure I’ve restarted it at least once by now since they started. What I’m talking about is updating the app which has the blue cloud symbol on it in the App Store as though I’ve downloaded it before but it’s not downloading when I click. And it’s removed from my phone at the moment.

6

@Elsie

Disable Parental Controls:

7

@Elsie have you tried uninstalling then reinstalling the app?

8

This is not my screenshot, but this may actually exist. I may have worked at Apple and at the time I worked there, no such Files app existed, it was still a heavily walled garden, but from what I see, a Brave folder can exist. I don’t know what’s in it though as I found this screenshot online. (Just remember 289wk, iOS does NOT expose .app to the user, so do not include that when referencing apps, that’s not how the user ever sees it and will be confusing to them.)

But I found this screenshot online and they had a Brave folder, which honestly, I’ll admit I didn’t expect.

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But for now @Elsie , stick with what @Evan123 recommended first. The fact the App Store itself is failing to install likely doesn’t have anything to do with what’s on the iOS device itself, but rather something else.

(But again, good to know Files actually does show a Brave folder does actually exist.)

9

@Elsie

The Blue Cloud symbol
Screen Shot 2025-12-20 at 7.38.15 AM
means that the app has previously been installed on at least one of your iOS devices, and can be downloaded again.

Any chance that you have previously enabled automatic offloading of unused iOS apps in Settings? Or, the iOS update changed settings on your iPhone - where you would not have expected?

Every iOS update I have ever run, has been followed by my having to go over several settings in order to locate some that were changed by the iOS update.

Please double-check something:

On your iPhone, please go to: Settings > ScreenTime > Content & Privacy Restrictions

If Content & Privacy Restrictions is Enabled, then see: Settings > ScreenTime > Content & Privacy Restrictions > iTunes & App Store Purchases ← therein, set:

  • Installing Apps to Allow
  • and for REQUIRE PASSWORD set to Don't Require

And then back your way out of the Settings.

The Files.app (which is yet another iOS application like the Mail.app, and another way of writing Files app) is also shown in the Apple App Store, simply as Files (You can search for that, in the App Store. And, you can look up online, for tips on how to use the Files app.).

The Brave folder within the Files directory (as I have previously written about) on your iPhone, would be one location where you could store backed up / ie exported Brave Browser bookmarks files (exported, these files will be named bookmarks.html).

The general idea, behind my posts, is to be sure that you are prepared - “just in case” - for either:

  • the event of a thorough un-install (that includes deleting Brave data) and then re-install of Brave Browser (iOS)
  • an install or re-install of Brave Browser (iOS)

I do not know the exact Apple iOS activity that occurs during a complete, “forced” / “hard” Shutdown of the iPhone, except I do know that action has many times - somehow - fixed issues with the iPhone or some software misbehaving.

Occasionally, I have had to do the complete Shut Down after a thorough removal of Brave Browser, in order to thereafter do a fresh installation of Brave Browser . . . that works well.

On such occasions, oddball Brave Browser performance was the issue and motivating factor. On one occasion, a particular Brave Browser setting that was supposed to exist in Brave Browser (iOS), did not exist.

I do not know why; it just plain did not exist. Then, going to the trouble of backing up my Brave Browser data, followed by a thorough removal of Brave Browser, followed by a complete shutdown of my iPhone, followed by a fresh installation of Brave Browser . . . worked.

10

Thanks for all this but I need to clarify that everyone on the planet knows what the blue cloud with down arrow means. I have been using apple products since 1994 and iphones since the 3G days. I only was telling you Brave was on my phone before the 26.2 update. Please understand me as a sentient being who did not just discover the app or the iPhone today. The Brave support people told me in email that it is a 26.2 problem with the APP STORE. A week ago I updated to 26.2 and it froze during the update; i had to restore to the prior backup of 26.0.1 and it forced me to update to 26.2 without getting to pause at 26.0.1. When I looked at everything still there, the Brave browser was gone.

Why would you even not understand I already owned and used this app before? That is the whole reason I am upset I can’t get it back on the phone. There is no point now going through all these things to do when the Support staff said in email that it is a 26.2 problem and that they don’t consider it their problem because they aren’t in control of the iPhone app store. I personally feel Brave should be working with APPLE to get their APP to download on the app store with 26.2 but they don’t think they need to do anything. There is nothing I can do as far as I was told by the support staff by email. if you think they are wrong, please let me know and then I’ll try to go through all this stuff you said to do but it is a big inconvenience that the browser is not downloading and I am not really in a position to spend time doing that right now until I recover some recordings I was looking for (using iMazing) from the last iphone backup I made prior to the iOS 26.2 update which I am in the middle of taking care of.

If there are steps I can take to get this browser back on the phone, great, but this is so confusing. Other apps are updating. Yours wasn’t working but I’ll try things like rebooting the phone and such after I finish salvaging getting back some recordings from the Retronyms Recorder app that claims is does not exist in the iPhone App store now since the update and which recordings are very important to me to recover the recordings from. I will give up on using their app after this. As to Brave, if it won’t work with the iPhone any more I’ll have to give up on it too.

Do all of you use 26.2 on the iphone and have no problems with brave browser? Sad that I have this problem.

11

Yea I think perhaps I should say something at this point as an ex Apple employee who’s not only wrote code for the company in the past (not anything current, I left around OS X Mavericks) but also was an AppleCare rep as well (when trying to improve Mac OS X and iOS and find issues, bugs, but also quality of life improvements as well).

The cloud icon is exactly as you describe, it means you own it (even if free, it’s a “receipt” of a sort). It’s just not installed. Being it won’t install, this is something in my experience with Apple, is something you’d reach out to Apple for, as the App Store is their product and it should be installing.

Now with that said, things have changed since I last worked there, but as far as I know the App Store still installs the same way, thus if it won’t reinstall, this is something Apple might need to assist with, because it may be one of those kinds of bugs I took calls to catch in advance.

(And no, you shouldn’t need to go into Files whatsoever for this. Not sure where those recommendations are coming from, but they are certainly not valid for iOS.)

Please understand though, I’m just a user, not a Brave developer, and since I no longer work at Apple I have no backend access to even know what’s going on (so no server logs on your account I could possibly pull today). If I did, I’d be happy to look for you, but alas I don’t work there anymore.

12

Yep. iPhone 13 Pro Max with it. No issues at all. And haven’t seen anyone else sharing about problems like you are.

I’m on iOS 26.2 and was able to update to Brave 1.85 (116) and open.

@Elsie have you tried restarting your phone? And making sure not to have Brave open when updating?

Worst case scenario is you may end up needing to uninstall Brave and add it again.

What support staff and in what email? What I mean is who is it you say referred back and how did you contact them?

They did. It’s working just fine. Many users and right now you’re the only one I am seeing with an issue.

13

Wait, I just want to ensure I am reading this part right, and I am sorry if I’m not (it’s why I want to make sure first), is Brave not the only app misbehaving in the App Store currently? If I read that correctly, then what I said last stands taller, this might be a call to Apple.

If not, then no worries, I just want to make sure I’m reading this right first.

14

I did talk to Apple first - they never help on things involving third party apps, from my experience - former apple employees may know too. Frustrating situation, am short of the time needed to deal with it.

I am dealing with some other problems with the nightmare I had with the initial installation of 26.2 failing while tethered and I’m tired of dealing with apple and the brave app download as well. I’m glad if it works for everyone else.

I don’t know anything about the File.app thing that was mentioned but if that would help, fine. I also have access to iMazing –

and if it can help I will look into that too but i have my hands full recovering some old recordings from a now disappeared app that is not even in the app store and problems with signal due to only backing the phone up to the macbook. It is very tiring to deal with endless problems from one screwed up iOS update that Apple forced on me and then had it fail in the middle of the update.

15

ok, can someone tell me how to uninstall and reinstall the app? Maybe that would solve the issue. Maybe someone has already included how to do that in one of the messages. I will try to catch up reading. If the app was present on my front screen I could easily uninstall it but it is not present on the phone even though it was “previously installed” apparently so how do I uninstall something not present?

16

Good luck, I’m not here for verbal abuse.

17

I think I was able to get some information from an AI app on what to do. I did not “abuse” someone by mentioning that Apple rarely helps anyone when they are dealing with a third party app. I called them first before looking for help from Brave. thanks.

18

Please read all I wrote; I explained all this.

I made calls to Apple first, before I ever wrote in here, and i mentioned that. I have tons of apps that did just fine with the update. I called them first as was the obvious thing to do.

Brave is the one that is the most broken in the app store after the update and that should be of concern to Brave but since it was just me affected then never mind. I will do what I can to uninstall and reinstall but even that is very hard to do currently and I will deal with an AI app to get the help i need.

I have found that AI apps like Copilot and Grok seem to be good at going through information available, including Apple information, better than even calling Apple first line tech support, aside from some of the senior level tech support there who were not available when this started because it was late at night.

Brave is the only one that is this broken in the app store. The others will all reinstall if they disappeared and most didn’t disappear.

19

@Elsie are you still having this issue? If so, is the app downloaded on your device presently or no? If it is not, what do you see when you search and view the app on the iOS app store?

20

I have been through all sorts of steps with Apple and nothing fixed it and now I’m supposed to have them call and do a diagnostic quickly and then set up a case with the special team but I don’t expect this to ever download again.

It just doesn’t download. And nobody seems to know how to refresh the connection. And it’s only brave that it happens with. Refuses to get past the rotating circle. I already did all of the restarts and force quits and reset network remedies.

I guess the only way I’ll get to download brave again is when Apple pushes a new update perhaps because it started after an update that hung and I had a lot of trouble finishing it. But no other app in the App store has the problem for me.