Is your iPhone’s home screen too messy and cluttered? Here’s a quick and easy way to hide apps on iPhone
Before the release of iOS 14, organizing all of your apps was a pain in the ass. Apple did not give you any way to organize or store them, save for folders.
If you download and use a lot of apps, this meant you have to have multiple home screens running packed with apps and folders. It was ideal, basically – especially since Android has an app drawer since day one.
However, with the release of iOS 14, iPhone users now have access to App Library – Apple’s answer to Android’s app drawer. But unlike Android’s app drawer, App Library is a machine-learning-powered organization suite.
With App Library, you no longer have to have hundreds of apps and folders on your home screens. You can just run the apps that you daily and store all the other, less-used apps inside App Library.
This means your home screens are less cluttered, giving you more room to show of things like your iPhone’s wallpaper.
How To Hide Apps on iPhone
Apple doesn’t technically let you “hide” apps on iPhone. If an app is installed, the app will be present either on one of your home screens or inside App Library.
You cannot make it hidden, basically – although you can make it harder to find. And this is where App Library comes into play.
To access App Library, simply scroll left until you reach your last home screen. This is where App Library lives.
Inside App Library, you’ll find some neatly organized folders, a search bar, and all of the apps installed on your iPhone.
Cleaning Up Your Home Screen
If you haven’t used App Library yet, you can now take this opportunity to remove/hide some of the apps running on your iPhone’s home screen.
To do this, simply long-press on the desired app and select REMOVE APP.
This will remove the app from your iPhone’s home screen. Don’t worry, it will not delete the app. Instead, the app you removed will now be stored inside App Library.
Hide NSFW Apps on iPhone
The benefit of hiding apps inside App Library is that you can keep the number of app icons on your home screens down to an absolute minimum – I literally have about 10 across two home screens now.
The other benefit of hiding apps inside App Library is if you have or subscribe to things considered NSFW – things like OnlyFans, for instance. You can keep these apps off your home screen and out of view and away from prying eyes.
Again, you can do this with any application, so if your iPhone home screens are super cluttered, you can cut the numbers down drastically to something more manageable by leveraging App Library.
All you have to do is long-press on the app your want to hide and then select REMOVE APP – this will delete the app from your home screen and place it in App Library, where you can access it more privately.
Wrapping Up…
While you cannot technically “hide” an application inside iOS, you can make sure it is not viewable on any of your home screens by removing the app and letting it live solely inside Apple’s App Library.
This process is simple to do, requiring a long press on the app in question and then selecting REMOVE APP. The app is then kind of hidden, as it removes it from the home screen and places it inside App Library which is located on your last home screen, away from prying eyes.
Richard Goodwin has been working as a tech journalist for over 10 years. He is the editor and owner of KnowYourMobile.
