Wednesday, November 6, 2024
Daily TipsiPhone

How to organize the Home Screen apps on your iPhone

With iOS 14 and later, there are new ways to find and organize the apps on your iPhone — so you see what you want, where you want. Here’s how to use the App Library and organize your Home Screen.

Use the App Library to find your apps

From your Home Screen, swipe left until you see the App Library. Your apps are automatically sorted into categories. For example, you might see your social media apps under a Social category. The apps that you use most frequently will automatically reorder based on your usage. When you install new apps, they’ll be added to your App Library, but you can change where new apps get downloaded.

Search for an app in the App Library

  1. Go to the App Library. 
  2. Tap the search field, then enter the app that you’re looking for. 
  3. Tap the app to open it.

Delete an app from the App Library

  1. Go to the App Library and tap the search field to open the list.
  2. Touch and hold the app icon, then tap Delete App.
  3. Tap Delete again to confirm.

If you can’t delete an app that’s not made by Apple, disable parental controls, then try deleting the app again.

Move apps to the App Library

  1. Touch and hold the app.
  2. Tap Remove App.
  3. Tap Remove from Home Screen.

Find, hide, and remove pages on your Home Screen

With iOS 14 and later, you can easily hide pages to streamline how your Home Screen looks and add them back whenever you want. Here’s how:

Touch and hold an empty area on your Home Screen.

Tap the dots near the bottom of your screen.

Tap the circle under the page that you want to hide.

Tap Done. 

To unhide a page, repeat the steps above. Then use the App Library to quickly find apps hidden on different pages.

To remove pages from your Home Screen:

Touch and hold an empty area on your Home Screen.

Tap the dots near the bottom of your screen.

Tap the circle under the page that you want to hide.

Tap the Remove button, then tap Remove. 

When you remove a page from your Home Screen, the apps will still appear in the App Library.

Reorder pages on your Home Screen

With iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, you can move pages on your Home Screen. Here’s how:

  1. Touch and hold an empty area on your Home Screen.
  2. Tap the dots near the bottom of your screen.
  3. Drag a page to reorder it.
  4. Tap Done.

(This how-to is based on my experiences and info on Apple’s support pages.)

Dennis Sellers
the authorDennis Sellers
Dennis Sellers is the editor/publisher of Apple World Today. He’s been an “Apple journalist” since 1995 (starting with the first big Apple news site, MacCentral). He loves to read, run, play sports, and watch movies.