How to Customize the Home Screen on Your iPhone or iPad

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Sporting all your apps, icons, and widgets, the Home screen is where you interact with your iPhone and iPad. For that reason, it should not only be pleasing to look at but easy to navigate. In the past, customizing the Home screen was limiting and often a struggle, since you had to fiddle with different settings in various places, but that changes in iOS 18 and iPadOS 18.

Building on Apple's effort to make the Lock Screen and Control Center more customizable, you can now directly add a widget to any part of the screen and change the size and color of the icons. You’re able to add, remove, and reorder each screen. And all this can be accomplished without leaving the Home screen.

First, you’ll need to update your device if you haven’t already done so. On an iPhone or iPad, go to Settings > General > Software Updates. Tap Upgrade to iOS 18 or Upgrade to iPadOS 18. At the next screen, tap Update Now and allow the new version to download and install.

Add a Widget

Want to add a widget? Older versions of iOS and iPadOS limited where a widget could be placed. Now, they can be added anywhere on any of your Home screens. Find an area where you want to add a specific widget. Press down on an empty area of that screen to make the icons start jiggling. Tap the Edit button at the top-left corner and select Add Widget from the menu. Swipe down the screen to see all the available widgets.

You’re able to add widgets for a variety of apps and content, including the Clock, Calendar, Contacts, Weather, Maps, Music, News, Notes, and Photos. You can also add a Smart Stack, which lets you access multiple widgets in one spot by swiping up or down on the stack.

Some widgets are available in different sizes and layouts. The smallest size may let you see only one piece of content from the associated app, while the largest size typically displays multiple items. In this case, swipe left or right to view the different sizes and layouts until you find the preferred size.

Move to the widget you want to add, tap Add Widget, and then position it in your preferred spot on the screen. Multiple widgets can also be added at once.

After placing a widget, and while the icons are still jiggling, you may be able to resize it using a gray handle in the lower-right corner. Drag the handle diagonally to make it larger or smaller. When finished, tap Done.

Once the widget has been placed, you can reposition it anywhere on the current screen or move it to a different Home screen. Press down on the widget, then drag and drop it with your finger until it's been moved to the new preferred spot.

Even after a widget has been added, its size and layout can easily be changed. Press down on the widget until a menu appears. A widget will offer as many as four different sizes, from a small icon to a large full-screen app. Choose the size you like based on the widget and how much surrounding space is available.

To remove a widget, just press down on it and select Remove Widget from the menu. Tap Remove to confirm your action.

Customize the Style and Colors of the Home Screen

Next, you can change the visual look and style of the Home screen. For this, press down on any empty area of the Home screen and tap Edit > Customize. Here, you can tweak a variety of settings. Tap the sun icon to switch the screen between bright and dark. Tap Large to increase the size of the icons (notice that the larger size omits the name of each app). Tap Small to return to the smaller size.

Apple's iOS also allows you to play around with different color themes. Light should be the default theme. From there, tap Dark to darken the screen and make the icons take on a darker shade. Tap Automatic to change the visual look based on the wallpaper and background color.

Finally, tap Tinted to apply tints to the icon. With this option, move the slider on the two bars at the bottom to try out different colors. To use a custom tint color, select the eye dropper icon at the right and move the large grid circle over the color you want to capture. Tap any area of the screen when you’re done.

Add, Remove, and Reorder Your Home Screens

You probably have more than one Home screen, especially if you’ve installed a lot of apps. Maybe you want to switch the order of those screens or even hide a specific screen. For these changes, press down on any empty area of the Home screen and select Edit > Edit Pages. Tap the blank circle to check any page you wish to see. Tap the checkmark for any page that should be hidden. To reorder the pages, drag and drop them to their new positions. Tap Done to see the new layout.

Another action you can take is to turn an app into a widget. You can’t perform this trick with all apps, so you’ll have to experiment to see which ones work. Press down on an app. If it’s capable of becoming a widget, as many as four small layout images appear in the menu. Play with the different sizes to find which one looks best.

Rearrange Icons

With past versions of iOS and iPadOS, all the icons on the Home screen had to be organized into a grid of rows and columns with no empty spaces. However, iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 now allows you to move the icons around the screen into almost any order. To try this, press down on one of the icons and select Edit Home Screen. Drag and drop any icon you wish to move into your preferred layout. When finished, tap Done.