In the old days, you had two choices when you had an app on your iPhone’s home screen: you could install the app and leave it there, or you could uninstall it completely to get rid of it. That is, unless it’s one of Apple’s first-party services, in which case you’re pretty much stuck with it whether you’ve ever planned to use it or not.
Fortunately, with age comes wisdom. In the end, Apple realized that they really should let their iPhone owners decide what they did and didn’t want to fill the confines of their home screens. Not only does this mean you can now hide rarely used apps, but you can even remove first-party Apple apps you’ll never use from your precious home screen pages. your racks – although you still can’t uninstall them completely.
Unfortunately, despite how easy it is to do this, many users still don’t know it’s even an option. Let us show you how to quickly and easily hide apps from your iPhone’s home screen without uninstalling them.
How to hide apps on your iPhone
- You need: iPhone running iOS 14 or later
- Estimated time: 1-5 minutes, depending on how many apps you want to hide
Method 1: Hide apps one by one
1. Long press on the app you want to hide
The options below the Darker Gray divider will vary between apps, but those above it will stay the same. You only need to worry about the red one. Michael Gariffo
Find the app you want to hide, and press and hold it until you get the haptic cues your iPhone gives for long presses. This will create a pop-up menu with a range of options, which will vary depending on the application in question. The option you need is the only one in red: Uninstall apps. Click it.
2. Confirm you want to hide the app
You can also delete apps from here. However, our goal is to keep it around so we can still use it quickly. Michael Gariffo
Remove apps is the same function you can use to completely uninstall apps. However, we only focused on hiding apps while keeping them installed, so you’ll want to tap into Remove from Home screen. This will cause the app in question to be installed on your iPhone but will remove its icon from your home screen or any folder located on your home screen. We’ll show you how to find apps and add them back to your home screen below.
Method 2: Hide multiple apps at once
1. Long press on an empty space on any home screen page
Ahh yes, the familiar image of wobbling apps… Michael Gariffo
If you’re looking to hide some apps, there’s a slightly faster way, and it’s also the method you use to move around apps. The fastest way to enter the mode we need is to long press on any blank part of any home screen page. This will put your apps wobbling in an animation that’s been around since the old days of iOS. It will also add a circle – in the top left corner of each icon. Find the first app you want to hide and tap – up there.
2. Confirm you want to hide the app
Whether you use Method 1 or Method 2, the confirmation dialog is the same Michael Gariffo
This will produce the same dialogue seen in Step 2 of Method 1. Just like in that method, you’ll want to press Remove from Home screen to hide apps. Once it’s cleared, you’ll be returned to the home screen with the apps still running lightly. Repeat the same process when touching – and Remove from Home screen for each app you want to remove. When you’re done, you can exit this app editing mode by clicking the home button (for iPhone models with a physical Home button) or swiping up from the bottom of the screen (for iPhone models that don’t have a physical Home button). has a physical Home button).
Find hidden apps and bring them back to your home screen
Since the whole point of hiding an app, rather than uninstalling it, is to have it when you need it, it’s important to learn how to find and bring it back to your home screen.
1. Open your App Gallery
All your installed apps will always be available in this section, regardless of whether they are hidden or not. Michael Gariffo
The app gallery can be found by swiping right, across, and across all your home screen pages. You’ll know you’ve found it when you see a list of apps, with no names, organized into squares with a search bar at the top that helps read “App Gallery” helpfully.
2. Find your app
You can scroll through or start typing to find your app. Michael Gariffo
There are many ways to do this. You can browse the categories to which you are referred instantly. However, it is usually faster if you just tap App Gallery search bar at top. Doing this will show you an alphabetized list (seen above) of all your installed apps, including any that are hidden. You can start typing the name of the app you’re looking for until iOS shows it, or you can just scroll through the list to find it. If you only need to use it once, you can tap it to open it from the App Gallery. However, if you want to add it back to your home screen for recurring use, skip to step 3.
3. Re-add hidden apps to your home screen
It’s similar to the pop-out menu to hide apps, but we’re showing them now. Michael Gariffo
If you want to bring a hidden app back to the home screen, press and hold app icon itself, not the gray bar to the right of it. Doing this will create another pop-out menu with Add to home screen right to buy. Tapping this will drop the app back to the first open position on your earliest home screen page. Alternatively, you can also touch, hold, and drag the app icon, which will allow you to place it in a specific location of your choice.
Frequently asked questions
This depends on several factors:
- Is it a big application? – If so, you might want to look into that. Large apps take time to reinstall if you need them back. On the contrary, they also take up a lot of storage space. This means that if you are running low on local storage space, then you should consider whether you really need the app, or if you can uninstall it and save some megabytes.
- Is it an app you use more than once a week? – If you use an app often but not often enough that you need instant access, it’s best to hide the app. That way, you can still open it with a few seconds of effort, but won’t need to reinstall.
- Is it a first-party Apple app? – If yes, you cannot uninstall it somehow. However, hiding apps you never thought you’d use is still a great method to get rid of them and reduce clutter.
Right! The universal search bar – found on the leftmost screen or by dragging down from the center of any home screen page – will still show any apps you have installed, even if they’re hidden .
Generally no. They still get automatic updates (assuming you have them enabled), they still take up the same amount of storage space as if they were placed on the home screen, and they still launch at the same speed if they were on the home screen. not hidden.
Hiding apps doesn’t really matter much other than where you’ll find the icon to access them. The apps themselves remain completely unchanged.
