Sometimes you want an app on your phone, but you don’t necessarily want it on your home screen. Thankfully you can hide apps on your iPhone until you need them instead of deleting apps outright.
Hiding iPhone apps is as easy:
- Long press on your wallpaper until the app icons jiggle.
- Tap the “-” button on the top left corner of the app you want to hide.
- Choose “Remove from Home Screen” in the prompt menu.
Want more detailed instructions? Let’s walk through how to hide apps on your iPhone and where to find these apps once you do. We also have tips for hiding apps from appearing in Search and your App Store purchase history. Read on to learn more.
How to hide your iPhone apps
Hiding apps on your iPhone requires just a few steps to accomplish. To do so:
- Long press on your wallpaper until the app icons jiggle. You can also long-press on an app and select the “Edit Home Screen” prompt.
- Tap the “-” button on the top left corner of the app you want to hide.
- Choose “Remove from Home Screen” in the prompt menu.
- (Optional) To hide apps in a folder, tap on the folder to see the “-” buttons for all apps inside it.
- Press on your wallpaper or “Done” in the top right corner of your screen. The apps will stop jiggling, and you can interact with them normally.
You cannot hide widgets the same way that you hide apps. Tapping on the “-” will only allow you to remove the widget. Any widgets you remove can be re-added using the “+” in the top left corner of the screen while editing the Home screen.
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Hiding iPhone apps by default
If you want to hide newly downloaded iPhone apps by default, you can.
- Open Settings, scroll down and select “Home Screen,.”
- Select “App Library Only” from this page. The App Library is one screen to the right of your rightmost normal Home screen. Newly downloaded games and apps will automatically be placed here from now on.
Finding hidden iPhone apps
You can find all apps you remove from your iPhone Home screen in the App Library or the Search tool. The App Library will automatically sort all your apps based on their category (like Social, Sports, or Games). It also has a folder that contains apps based on how you use your iPhone, and a recently added folder for everything you’ve downloaded.
All it takes to use the Search tool is a downward swipe on your Home screen. Thanks to Siri, you can search for apps, games, specific settings, and more. I love using Search to find apps I forget the location of. It’s also super snappy on my iPhone 13 Pro.
Hiding iPhone apps in "Search"
You can also prevent an iPhone app from appearing when you use Search.
- Scroll down in the “Siri & Search” menu inside Settings until you see the app you want to hide.
- Uncheck the “Show App in Search” and the “Show Content in Search” options to hide all of this app’s information from appearing in Search.
Adding hidden iPhone apps back to the home screen
It’s okay to change your mind after hiding a few iPhone apps. Here’s how to bring them back:
- From the App Library or Search, long press on the app that you want to put back on your Home screen.
- Hold and drag the app to the desired spot on the Home screen.
- Tap the “Done” button or your wallpaper to set the new Home screen layout.
Hiding apps from your App store purchases
You can also hide apps from appearing in your App Store purchase history. This process will not hide them from appearing on your Home screen without following the above steps, as well.
- Open the App Store.
- Tap on your profile icon in the top right corner.
- Search for the app you want to hide from your purchase history.
- Swipe to the left on the app and select the “Hide” option.
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