Are you scared of handing over your iPhone to a friend when they need it? Do you feel anxious when your children take your phone to play games because they can access every app on your device?
Well, we have a solution for your anxiety. All you have to do is hide the apps on your iPhone, and only you will be able to access them.
Not only this, hiding apps on your device will boost your productivity as you will have lesser apps distracting you with notification badges on your home screen.
This article will show you six ways to hide and unhide apps on iPhone.
- Hide apps from your home screen
- Hide several pages from the home screen
- Hide apps using focus mode
- Hide apps from search
- Hide stock apps on your device
- Hide third-party apps from your iPhone
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Hide apps from your home screen
Although there are several ways of hiding apps on your iPhone, this method is the most convenient.
Using this method you will be able to hide apps from your homepage but they will be visible in your app library and search results.
To hide apps from your home page, follow the steps given below:
- Open the home screen on your device.
- Press and hold the application you want to hide.
- Click on Remove App.
- Click on Remove from Home Screen.
This method only works on iOS 14 and above as it comes with the app library feature.
Unhide apps that were hidden using this method
Although hiding apps using this method puts them in the app library, it makes accessing them more cumbersome as one needs to head to the app library or search for them in the search bar.
To unhide apps, you can follow the steps given below:
- Head to the App Library on your device.
- Search for the hidden application.
- Press and hold the app icon.
- Click on Add to Home Screen.
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Hide several pages from your home screen
We all have more apps than we need on our devices, and sometimes this overwhelming number of applications makes the iOS experience less rewarding.
So, if you have a lot of apps on your device that you don’t use often, you can hide them using the hide pages functionality.
To hide pages on your device, follow the steps given below:
- Open the home screen on your device.
- Press and hold on to an empty portion of your home screen till the apps start to wiggle.
- Click on the dots on the bottom of your screen.
- Uncheck the pages you want to hide from your home screen and click on Done.
This method also hides apps from the home screen and the apps will be visible in your app library and search.
Unhide apps that were hidden using this method
To unhide pages on your iPhone, you can follow the steps given below:
- Open the home screen on your device.
- Press and hold on to an empty portion of your home screen till the apps start to wiggle.
- Click on the dots on the bottom of your screen.
- Check the pages you want to unhide from your home screen.
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Use focus mode to hide apps
iOS 15 came out with a new focus feature that lets users restrict notifications, activate do not disturb and perform several other actions, helping them focus when they work.
Although this feature is designed to improve productivity, it can be used to hide apps at the click of a button.
To hide apps using focus mode, follow the steps given below:
- Head to Settings on your device.
- Scroll down to Focus.
- Click on the + icon on the top right corner.
- Click on Custom.
- Enter a name for your focus mode and press Next.
- Click on Allow.
- Select the apps which can send you notifications when this focus mode is enabled and click on Allow.
- Click on Done.
- Click on Home Screen.
- Toggle the button next to Custom Pages.
- Select the pages you want to see when in this focus mode and click on Done.
Once you have created this focus mode, you will be able to hide apps quickly using the control centre.
To hide apps using the control centre, follow the steps given below:
- Open the control centre on your iPhone.
- Click on Focus.
- Select the Hide apps option.
To unhide apps hidden using focus mode, you have to disable the focus mode on your iPhone.
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How to prevent apps from being visible when you search for them?
The three methods of hiding apps given above let users hide apps from their homepages, but the apps will be visible when they are searched for in the operating system’s search bar.
To hide apps from being shown in the search bar, you can follow the steps given below:
- Open Settings on your device.
- Scroll down to Siri & Search.
- Click on the app you want to hide from search.
- Turn off the button next to Show App in Search.
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Hide stock apps on your device
Apple does not come with much bloatware, but it also comes with some stock applications that many users do not use.
To hide stock apps from your device, you can follow the steps given below:
- Head to Settings on your device.
- Scroll down to Screen Time.
- Click on Use Screen Time Passcode.
- Set passcode for screen time.
- Re-enter the passcode.
- Enter your Apple ID and password for your account.
- Click on Content & Privacy Restrictions.
- Toggle the button next to Content & Privacy Restrictions.
- Click on Allowed Apps.
- Toggle off the apps you want to hide from your system.
Unhide apps that were hidden using this method
Compared to other methods, the apps hidden by making changes in the screen time settings are not visible anywhere on the operating system.
This does not mean that these apps are deleted from your system. To bring back the apps hidden using this method, follow the steps given below:
- Head to Settings on your device.
- Scroll down to Screen Time.
- Click on Content & Privacy Restrictions.
- Click on Allowed Apps.
- Toggle on the apps you want to unhide from your system.
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Hide third-party apps from your iPhone
The method given above for hiding apps only works for some stock applications. So how do you hide third party applications on your device?
Before we get into that, we need to understand age restrictions for apps. So, all apps on the App store have an age restriction, and the method given below restricts apps based on this condition.
For example, Instagram and most other apps are rated 12+ on the App store; using content restrictions; users can hide apps that are restricted for specific age groups.
This method can we really usefull if you don’t want your children to use social media applications as most of them are age restricted.
To hide apps using age restrictions, you follow the steps given below:
- Head to Settings on your device.
- Scroll down to Screen Time.
- Click on Content & Privacy Restrictions.
- Click on Content Restrictions.
- Scroll down to Apps.
- Select the age limit for which you want to restrict apps.
When apps are hidden using this method and are unhidden later, iOS doesnot remember the pages or folders they were in and places the apps randomly on the homepage.
So if you are someone who has everything organized on your iPhone, this method can cause some trouble.
Hide all third party apps
In addition to hiding apps based on age, iOS lets users hide all third-party applications on their devices. To hide all apps on your device, follow the steps given below:
- Head to Settings on your device.
- Scroll down to Screen Time.
- Click on Content & Privacy Restrictions.
- Click on Content Restrictions.
- Select Apps.
- Select Don’t Allow Apps.
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