How to hide apps on an iPhone? Here’s how to keep your home screen organized
Setting up your iPhone is a very personal decision that some prefer to keep to the minimum. You may want to temporarily remove distracting apps without removing them completely. Maybe you want to clean up your home screen and organize your apps differently.
There may even be apps on your phone that you don’t want others to see. If yes, don’t worry. There is an easy way to protect your privacy on your phone and rearrange your home screen by hiding your apps. This allows you to remove apps from your home screen without deleting them entirely.
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How to hide apps on an iPhone
You can hide apps on your iPhone in two different ways, either by hiding a single app or by hiding multiple apps at once. Any apps you hide appear in your App Library, a feature on your iPhone that shows all the apps you’ve downloaded, organized into categories like Creativity, Entertainment, and Social. You can find the App Library by swiping right past any home screen page.
To hide a single app, follow these steps, according to Apple:
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Find the app you want to hide.
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Press and hold your finger on the app until a menu of options appears
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Tap Remove App.
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Select “Remove from Home Screen”.
The app will not appear on your home screen, but should still appear in your app library. If you later decide you don’t want to hide the app anymore, you can find it in your app library, hold your finger on it, and tap Add to Home Screen.
According to Apple, here’s how to delete an entire page of apps:
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Press and hold an empty area on your home screen
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Tap the dots at the bottom of the screen
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Tap the tick icon under the page of apps you want to hide so the tick disappears
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Then tap Done in the top right.
You can also tap the minus sign on the page you want to delete.
These apps are now stored in your app library. If you want to add this page (and its apps) back to your home screen, follow these steps again, but check the page to make sure the ticks appear again.
You can also prevent apps from appearing in your iPhone’s search function. This is the feature that appears when you swipe your finger down at the bottom of your home screen and a search bar appears. To do this, according to Apple, follow these steps:
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Open the Settings app on your iPhone
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Scroll down and tap Siri & Search
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Scroll down to the app you want to remove from search and tap it
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Disable “Show app in search”
You can also turn off “Show on home screen”, “Suggest app” and “Suggestion notifications” using the same steps.
How to remove apps from your iPhone
According to Apple, to remove apps from your iPhone, follow these steps:
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Touch and hold the app you want to delete
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Tap “Remove App” or the minus button in the top left corner of the app
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Tap “Delete App” and “Delete” to confirm removal
Not all apps can be removed from your iPhone, including but not limited to Mail, Calendar, Calculator, Voice Memos, and iTunes Store.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How to Hide Apps from iPhone Home Screen in Just a Few Steps