If you download many applications or games from the service, e.g Apple Arcade or Netflix, your iPhone’s home screen can fill up quickly. Keeping it organized can be a challenge, but there’s an easy way to declutter by keeping your apps in your iPhone’s app library.
Apple introduced the App Library with the release of iOS 14 2020. This feature organizes your iPhone’s apps into categories, such as Social and Entertainment, and keeps them out of your home screen. However, keep in mind that your iPhone organizes these categories on its own, and you can’t reorganize your apps if you don’t agree with where they’re placed.
Here’s how to hide apps from your iPhone’s home screen and how to access your app library.
Hiding apps on your iPhone
1. Touch and hold an app on the home screen until a menu appears.
2. Touch Remove the app.
3. Touch Remove from home screen.
Now the app won’t be visible on your home screen, but it will still be available in your app library. You can also hide multiple apps in quick succession. Here’s how.
1. Touch and hold an empty part of the home screen until the icons start moving.
2. Tap the minus symbol in the corner of the app you want to hide.
3. Touch Remove from home screen.
Then repeat steps two and three until you hide all the apps you want to hide, then tap Done in the upper right corner of your home screen.
Now that your apps are off the home screen, there are a few ways to access them. Here’s how.
How to access your hidden apps
The fastest way to find a hidden app is by tapping is looking for at the bottom of your home screen to use the Spotlight search feature. Then type the name of the app you are looking for in the search bar and the app should appear above the search bar.
You can find your hidden apps in your App Library.
You can also swipe right on the home screen until you open the App Library on the last screen. Here you can see the different categories your iPhone has organized your apps into, and you can search your app library by tapping the search bar at the top of the screen.
And if you want to add a hidden app back to your home screen, go to the App Library by swiping right, tap and hold the app, then tap Add to home screen.
Clean up your home screen without hiding apps
If you want to tidy up your home screen but don’t want to hide your apps in the app library, you can create folders full of apps on your home screen. You can name these folders whatever you want and organize your apps however you like, giving you more control over where your apps reside than in the app library.
Here’s how to create home screen folders for your apps.
1. Touch and hold an empty part of the home screen until the icons start moving.
2. Tap an app and drag it onto another app, and a gray square will surround the two apps.
You can arrange the folders however you want and add whatever apps you want to them.
Tapping outside the gray square will return you to the home screen so you can drag more apps into your new folder if you want. When you’re done, tap Done in the upper right corner of your home screen.
Now your apps aren’t hidden and you don’t have to search for them in the app library or using Spotlight, and your home screen is much neater. Plus, you can put all your social media apps or games in one place without worrying about your iPhone losing them.
For more information about iOS, check out what’s new for your iPhone with iOS 17.4, what’s included in iOS 17.3, and our iOS 17 cheat sheet.
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