How to hide apps on your iPhone
Let’s look at a few scenarios. In the first one, you just want to hide the app icon from the home screen. Second, you want to hide the app so no one except you would know it’s installed. And if your option is the second, I don’t want to know why you need this.
But well, are both options possible? Well, you can do a heap of things to hide the app. For example, you can hide it from the home screen, Google Search, and your App Store purchase history.
So, let’s look at how to do these tricks.
How to hide an app from the Home Screen of your iPhone
You can hide just one app, but you also can hide the entire Home Screen’s page. That’s convenient if you want to hide many apps at once.
And no, that doesn’t mean you would uninstall them. You would still have access to them via App Library. It’s the list of all the apps installed on your iPhone. You can access App Library by swiping all your Home Screen pages; after the last page, you will see the App Library. Here’s what it looks like:
How to hide a single app from the Home Screen
Here’s what to do to hide a single app:
- Hold the finger on the app icon.
- In the drop-down menu, tap on Remove App.
- You need to choose Remove from Home Screen in the list of options.
Frankly speaking, in my life, I have tapped several times on Delete App instead, as this option is red, and you assume it’s the one you need to tap. I even accidentally taped on Delete App while making a screenshot for this article.
So hold on for a second and tap on Remove. After you do this, the icon will disappear from the Home Screen, but the app will still be on your iPhone, and you can access it via App Library.
Read also:
How to hide the entire Home Screen page with all apps on it
But if you want to hide many apps or even a couple of Home Screen pages, there’s no need to hide them one by one. You can hide the entire Home Screen page instead. Here’s how to do this:
- Tap and hold Search island at the bottom of the Home Screen.
- Then, once the icons shake, tap on the dots at the bottom of the Home Screen.
- You will see all your Home Screen pages; just uncheck the checkmarks for pages you want to hide.
- Tap Done at the top-right corner to confirm the action.
Now, the entire Home Screen page is hidden. You can always do the same steps and check the page to re-enable it.
How to hide apps on your iPhone using folders
If you want to hide some apps just to systematize your Home Screen, you can try to sort them by folders. I don’t like folders, and I don’t use them, but it’s a powerful tool to streamline your Home Screen.
Here’s how to hide apps on iPhone with folders:
- Tap on the app icon and hold it.
- Drag your app icon on top of another app.
- That will create a folder. The folder would be auto-named, but you can change it if you wish.
You can drag the second app out of the folder so that you will keep the folder with only one app inside. Or you can drag more apps over the folder icon to add them to the same folder.
- But if you want to hide some apps deeper than just in a folder, you can tap on the app icon and move it to the next folder’s page (just drag it to the right side of the folder’s tab to create a new page and drop it here).
- You can do the same action multiple times to hide more apps on different pages.
- Once you add more pages, the number of dots at the bottom will increase, indicating the number of pages in the folder. You can navigate between the folder’s pages by swiping them left and right.
- But if the folder is closed, you will see the icon only for the apps on the first page of the folder.
Read also:
How to hide apps from Search and Siri Suggestions
You can find all your apps in the App Library or search for them. Also, recently or actively used apps may be displayed in Siri suggestions. If you want to prevent them from being found, you can hide them both from search and Siri Suggestions. Here’s how:
- Go to Settings and find Siri & Search.
- Scroll down and tap on the app you want to hide.
- Toggle off Show App in Search.
Now, the app wouldn’t be searchable, so if you enter its name into the search field, it wouldn’t be found.
- To hide the app from Siri Suggestions (Smart Suggestions), you need to toggle off Learn from this App.
- If you want to hide the app’s content from the search — you need to toggle off Show Content in Search.
How to hide your purchase history in App Store
Here’s what to do:
- Go to App Store.
- Tap on your Avatar in the top-right corner.
- Tap on Purchased.
- Now you will see the list of your downloaded apps. Just swipe right-to-left to see the Hide red button.
- Tap on this button to hide the app and tap on Done to save changes.
You can hide apps from your App Store purchase (and download history). You can do the same with purchased and free-to-download apps. But apps are still on your iPhone, and you can still find them on Home Screen, in App Library, or via Search (unless you hid them in the ways I showed above).
How to hide default apps from your iPhone
You can also hide default apps from your iPhone. This way, they wouldn’t appear not only in the search or Home Screen but also in the App Library.
Here’s how to hide them:
- Go to Settings.
- Then, go to Screen Time.
- Turn on Screen Time and go to Content & Privacy Restrictions.
- Here, you need to go to Allowed Apps.
- And toggle off apps you want to hide.
As I said, the hidden app will completely disappear from your iPhone, but you can always return it by toggling it on.
That’s it. This method can hide apps from the search or home screen. In the case of default apps, you can even hide them completely. However, there's still no way to hide the app from the App Library completely. Disabling Smart Suggestions make them less prominent, but the app would still be in the Library so that it can be discovered.
