How to Hide Apps on the iPhone & iPad

Mar 28, 2013 - 21 Comments

How to Hide Apps on iPhone & iPad

Want to hide an app or two from appearing on the iOS home screen? Maybe you want to hide all apps downloaded from the App Store, but keep the defaults visible? Or maybe you just want to hide a stock app that shipped with your iPhone or iPad like Safari or iTunes? You can do all of the above or any of the above, and none of it requires any funky tweaks or downloads to perform. It turns out that hiding any type of app is really easy in iOS.

We’ll cover three different ways to hide apps, including hiding Apple’s default apps that ship with iOS devices which can’t be deleted, hiding downloaded apps from the App Store, and another approach that will hide anything from immediate view while still retaining the apps accessibility in iOS.

These tricks work in all versions of iOS. Note the apps aren’t deleted and they aren’t uninstalled in any of these processes, they are just hidden from view. Uninstalling apps is easy and fast, but completely separate.

Hide Apple Default Apps on the iPhone & iPad

This trick will hide any app that comes preinstalled on iOS. You can use this to hide Safari, Camera (which also disables the camera completely), FaceTime, Watch, GameCenter, and iTunes apps:

  1. Open Settings and tap on “General”
  2. Go to “Restrictions” and tap “Enable Restrictions”, set a passcode for restrictions if you haven’t yet
  3. Under “Allow” toggle the apps you want to hide to OFF, i.e. flip the switch next to “Safari” to OFF if you want to hide Safari
  4. Exit out of Restrictions when satisfied

Hide Safari and default apps in iOS

Return to the home screen to discover the apps you toggled to OFF to no longer be visible. They are still installed on the device, they are simply hidden from the user without going back to Restrictions and toggling them ON again.

Not all Apple default apps will be visible in that list, though that may change in future iOS versions, for now if you want to hide all default apps you’ll need to combine several of the tricks outlined in this article to hide them all.

Hide All Downloaded Apps from the iOS Home Screen

This is a simple way to hide every single app that has been downloaded to iOS from the App Store, removing them from the home screen:

  1. Open Settings and tap on “General”
  2. Go to “Restrictions” and make sure they are enabled
  3. Scroll down under “Allowed Content” and look for “Apps”
  4. Tap “Don’t Allow Apps” to instantly hide all downloaded apps

Hide all apps

Go back to the home screen and you’ll discover all apps downloaded from the App Store are missing, even those from Apple. If you have a lot of third party apps this will make a huge difference and can take a home screen from being full to only those that came on the device to begin with:

Hide apps on an iPhone

Again, they aren’t deleted from the iPhone or iPad, they are simply hidden from view until the App Restrictions are set to “All” again. This is also a decent trick to use if you want to quickly hand your iOS device off to someone else and don’t want them having access to seeing personal data contained within some apps. If you’re hiding the apps and handing an iPad or iOS device off to a child it can also be a good idea to quickly toggle the switches for age-appropriate apps, prevent apps from being deleted from the device, turn off in-app purchases, all quick adjustments within Restrictions.

Important Note: Toggling the “Hide All” option ON and OFF and ON again will reset the Home Screen icon arrangements, and any apps contained in folders will be pulled out of their folders. Be aware of this, but remember that you can easily restore your old Home Screen layout by resyncing with iTunes or iCloud (thanks to Dave, Dean, and Matt for clarifying this).

Hide Apps in a Folder

This is the age-old traditional method that has been around as long as Folders, and it’s probably best for unused apps, though it’s more like hiding something from view rather than truly hiding it. Nonetheless, it’s a valid solution in many cases and is extremely simple:

  1. Tap and hold on any app icon until it starts to jiggle
  2. Drag that app icon onto another app you want to hide to create a folder, name it whatever you want like “Unused”
  3. Drag other apps to hide into that folder as necessary

Hide apps from view by putting them into a Folder

Because this relies on a folder, the app is really only hidden from the home screen because it’s now in another container. In a way this is kind of like putting something into a virtual closet that rarely gets opened rather than truly hiding it, but for some things that you can’t really control otherwise, can’t delete, and can’t hide directly, it works.

Hide apps from the Home Screen in iOS easily

Remember, another approach is to uninstall or delete an app rather than try to hide it. Deleting apps works on apps you have downloaded from the iOS App Store, but not apps that come preinstalled since they can’t be removed.

Other Hiding Methods: Newsstand, Third Party Tweaks, Jailbreaks, etc

The tips to hide apps in iOS mentioned above work in all somewhat modern releases of iOS, even if the settings screens look slightly differently the options remain possible.

But, these aren’t the only options. There are some other quirky tweaks out there that rely on software bugs, like quickly jamming apps or other folders into the Newsstand folder before it closes, but because those methods are reliable on iOS software bugs they are usually patched and don’t last too long, making them not the most reasonable solutions. Every once in a while an “App Hider” tweak will also make it’s way through the App Store either for iOS or OS X and those can work too, but because they are also relying on software bugs they typically get pulled quickly, and the bug it relied on also gets patched quickly.

Finally, there are some jailbreak tweaks out there to hide any app, but because jailbreaking is iOS version dependent, they aren’t applicable to everyone. Thus we focused on the consistently reliable approaches using legitimate ways through Settings and Folders. Do note that older versions of iOS will have another option or two when hiding defaults, and prior to iOS 6 you can hide the YouTube app as well in those same Settings options.

We don’t really recommend these alternate methods of trying to hide apps, just stick with what is built into iOS and what is proven to work across each version. Relying on a specific tweak or trick is not sustainable in the long run, so it’s better to remove the apps you don’t want, and hide the apps you don’t want to see on any Iphone, Ipad, or iPod touch.

Got any other reliable tips or tricks to hide apps on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch? Let us know in the comments.

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Posted by: Paul Horowitz in iPad, iPhone, Tips & Tricks

21 Comments

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  1. Karima Bi says:

    The one that worked for me was Hide All Downloaded Apps from the iOS Home Screen you should try and it’s really easy.

  2. Lj says:

    “Relying on a specific tweak or trick“ what a missed opportunity say, “trick or tweak”!

  3. Jubilee says:

    I don’t have the general in my settings, what should I do

  4. Brian says:

    Got my 1st Iphone and I am not impressed with all the crappy apps that came with it that I can’t delete or replace.

    Especially the generic “mail” app.

    I want to use the app that comes from each of my mail providers so I can organise my work mail in one app and my private mail in another, without having some iphone app jumping all over the place and messing everything up.

    Yes I can hade it in a folder but it is still gathering notifications and bugging me on a daily basis.

    As for the “Stocks” app. Really??? that is what Apple consider to be one of the foremost tools needed on a contemporary phone.

    • Pat says:

      Before you are derisive about an app or process, you need to work with it more to gain a greater understanding of what it can and cannot do as well as the audience it was aimed at.
      Clearly you have not worked with the “stock” apps.
      If you have a problem with something be specific. Generalities do not help.
      Smile more and take a positive approach. Not only will you understand more but others will be more inclined to listen to you. Remember, Apple didn’t become the second most valuable company in the world (yes, recently Alphabet passed them up) by hiring people like you or me. In case you are wondering, Alphabet is a conglomeration of companies and projects, most notably Google.

  5. Tara says:

    This doesn’t give a way to block just a single app that is not on the restricted list. That’s what I was looking for

  6. Geedavey says:

    Gee, Android by default hides apps from view when you delete the icon and still lists them, fully functional, in the App Manager (which is where they are uninstalled from as well). I like my new iPad, but boy am I putting up with a lot of bull

  7. sliderLabo says:

    I had this problem for a long time.
    My friend recommended me Leo Privacy Guard for fixing this.
    I am skeptic with this king of tools but I was wrong.
    This tool can do anything.

  8. Robert says:

    In my “Allow” section I don’t see all the apps that shipped with my phone. Not event he “stock app” that the article specifically says I can disable. No game center either, basically my list just has safari, camera, facetime and itunes. So I cannot disable what I want to.

  9. Tony Wong says:

    My Restrictions settings is already enabled but I forgot the password
    Is there a solution to regain my password here?

  10. Neil says:

    I just park apps I don’t care about, such as Apple’s Game Center, all by themselves on the last of my screens. Then I don’t go there. Simple, nothing to remember, easy to change my mind if the occasion arises.

  11. Dave says:

    USERS BEWARE!!!

    Using method 2 (Hide All Downloaded Apps from the iOS Home Screen) to hide your apps will remove them from any folders you may have organized them into, and creates a big mess to clean up when you unhide them!!!!!!!!

    Thanks for the warning OSXDaily!!

    • Matt says:

      You can easily restore your old home screen layout by resyncing with iTunes or iCloud, or by rearranging in iTunes. But yes a warning would have been nice.

      • Steve says:

        How can I restore it? I do not have an iTunes backup only iCloud, there is no option restore only to wipe out everything.

  12. Dean says:

    So, the hide all apps trick pulled ALL of my apps out of their folders!!!

    So bummed…

  13. St3phen says:

    Note that restricting “Camera” prevents the device’s camera from being used in any app or page.

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