How to Hide Apps on Your iPhone

While there’s no way to completely hide apps on an iPhone, you can make them harder to find. Hiding apps will also clear up space your home screen, so you don’t have to see apps that you don’t use very often. Here are several ways to hide apps on your iPhone’s home screen, Siri suggestions, and you App Store purchase history.

How to Hide Apps on Your iPhone Using Folders

To hide an app on your iPhone, go to your Home Screen and tap and hold any app. Then select Edit Home Screen and drag the app on top of another app. Finally, open the folder and drag the app you want to hide to the right side in order to create a new folder window.

1. Go to the Home Screen on your iPhone. On older iPhones, you can do this by pressing the Home button at the bottom of your screen. On an iPhone X or newer, you can quickly swipe up from the bottom of your screen.
2. Then tap and hold any app. You can let go when you see a pop-up menu appear.
3. Next, select Edit Home Screen.
4. Then tap and hold the app and drag it on top of another app. This will create a new folder on your iPhone Home Screen with the two apps inside.
5. Next, open the folder. To do this, simply tap on the new folder on your home screen.
6. Then drag the app to the right to create a new folder window. You can do this by dragging the app to the right edge of the folder. This will create a new folder window, where you will hide the app.
7. Finally, tap any blank area on your screen and tap Done. You will see this in the top-right corner of your screen.

While this method is good for hiding apps on your Home Screen, you can also remove them from your Home Screen completely.

How to Hide Apps Using the App Library

To hide apps on your iPhone using the App Library, go to the Home Screen and tap and hold the app that you want to hide. Then select Remove App from the pop-up menu. Finally, tap Remove from Home Screen to hide the app in your App Library.

Note: These steps will only work if you are running iOS 14 or later. If you want to know how to update your iPhone, check out our step-by-step guide here.

1. Go to the Home Screen on your iPhone.
2. Then tap and hold the app you want to hide.
3. Next, tap Remove App.
4. Finally, tap Remove from Home Screen. This will remove your app from the home screen, but you will still be able to find it in the App Library, which you can access by swiping left on your home screen. Then you can find any hidden apps using the search bar at the top of the App Library screen.

To add apps back to your Home Screen, tap and hold the app and select Add to Home Screen. You can also tap and hold an app in the search results and drag it to add it back to your Home Screen at any time.

Note: All the apps on your iPhone will appear in the App Library, so this is the most you can hide an app.

If you want to find out other ways to customize your iPhone, check out our step-by-step guide article on how to add widgets to your iPhone home screen.

While moving an app to the App Library is a good way to hide it, you can make an app even harder to find by hiding it from your iPhone’s search results. Here’s how:

How to Hide Apps from iPhone’s Search Results

To hide apps from your iPhone’s search results, go to Settings > Siri & Search. Then scroll down, tap the app’s name, and turn off Show App in Search. You can also turn off all the other settings to stop the app from showing up anywhere on your phone.

If you are hiding an app from your search results, you might also want to turn off notifications for the app. Here’s how:

How to Turn Off Notifications For an iPhone App

To turn off notifications for an app on your iPhone, go to Settings > Notifications. Then scroll down, select the app, and tap the slider next to Allow Notifications. You will know it is turned off when the slider is gray.

How to Hide Apps from your App Store History

To hide an app from your App Store history, open the App Store on your iPhone and tap the Today tab. Then select your profile icon in the top-right corner and then select Purchased. Finally, swipe left on an app and tap Hide and then Done.

1. Open the App Store app on your iPhone. This is the app with the blue “A” icon.
2. Then tap your profile icon. You will see this in the top-right corner of your screen. If you don’t see it, tap the Today tab in the bottom-left corner of your screen.
3. Next, tap Purchased. If you have more than one user on your iPhone, you will also have to select your account.
4. Then swipe left on an app and tap Hide.
5. Finally, select Done. You will see this in the top-right corner of your screen.

If you would rather remove an app entirely, check out our step-by-step guide on how to delete an app from your iPhone.