Can You Disable App Library on iPhone? Alternatives to Using App Library
Are you not a big fan of using App Library on iPhone? In that case, you may be looking for ways to disable App Library on your iPhone so that you don’t see it or accidentally activate it.
If you’re looking for a short answer to the question of “can I disable App Library” then the answer is no, despite what you might read elsewhere, you can’t completely disable the App Library. Apple has yet to introduce a setting that allows it to be turned off. However, the long answer is more interesting than you think, and there are ways to basically use an iPhone as if App Library didn’t exist. avoid using App Library
App Library is one of the best new features and biggest visual changes that was introduced in iOS 14 for iPhone, and has been with the iPhone ever since, even in iOS 18. With App Library, Apple intends to clean up your home screen that’s cluttered with apps that you’ve installed over the years. However, some people may hate App Library for whatever reason, or perhaps they have have trouble getting used to it, and some would rather have all their apps on the home screen itself instead.
In this article, we’ll see how you can manage to avoid using the App Library altogether on your iPhone, since it can’t be turned off currently.
Alternatives to Disabling App Library on iPhone
Although there’s no direct way to disable this feature, there are alternative options that you can try out.
1. Don’t Swipe Past the Last Home Screen Page
App Library can only be accessed by swiping past the last home screen page on your iPhone. On previous versions of iOS, you can’t swipe past the last page anyway.
Therefore, if you can just avoid swiping past the last page, you don’t have to worry about using App Library on your iPhone at all. It’ll be like the feature was never there in the first place.
Basically, by not swiping over to App Library, you won’t stumble into it, and you won’t need to use it.
Yes, we understand that this may seem a little silly, but take a look at the next few options as well.
2. Unhide All Home Screen Pages
If you’ve tried to get a hang of App Library on iPhone, you may have hidden some of the pages of apps to tidy up your home screen. Simply unhide these pages and you can easily restore how your home screen always used to look. Here’s how to do it:
- Long-press on the home screen to enter jiggle mode and tap on the dot icon as shown below.
- Now, just check or select the pages that you want to unhide and tap on “Done” located at the top-right corner of your screen.
3. Move New Apps to Home Screen
App Library gives you the option to automatically move newly downloaded apps to the library instead of just adding them to the home screen. If you enabled this while trying out App Library, you can change the setting back so that all your new apps show up in the home screen just like they used to. Simply follow the steps below:
- Head over to “Settings” from the home screen of your iPhone. Scroll down and tap on “Home Screen” to continue.
- Now, select the option “Add to Home Screen” and you’re good to go.
Don’t forget you can also move and delete apps from App Library too if you want to.
Those are pretty much the options available at the moment.
As you can see, currently you can’t just turn off App Library, but you can avoid using App Library altogether as long as you don’t swipe past the last home screen page.
Although App Library makes it super convenient to clean up your home screen by automatically sorting and managing the apps stored in the library, this feature isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Several long-time iOS users who have gotten accustomed to having their home screens filled with nothing but rows of apps could have trouble getting a hang of this new addition.
It’s also worth pointing out that some people may have developed the muscle memory to quickly launch their favorite apps from a certain location on the home screen and this will mostly always be faster than using App Library to launch apps.
Another visual, yet functional addition to iOS in the same release was the addition of home screen widgets. This feature really aims to change the way you interact with the home screen, which can help to make sure it isn’t just filled with app icons. So, if you’re interested in checking this out, you can learn how to add widgets to your iPhone home screen, which is easily one of the most popular new features available in the latest iOS releases.
We hope you were able to use these alternative solutions to stop using App Library on your iPhone. What’s your reason for not wanting to use App Library? Should Apple give users the option to disable this feature on their iPhones? Did you find any other solution to your issues with App Library, or do you love the feature and have no complaints? Share your opinions and experiences in the comments!
In the dictionary, under “redundant”, it says “See ‘redundant'”.
-Robin Williams
Apple library is a joke. It just proves how little control we have over our own devices. Why don’t we just invite them into the house with a listening device oh wait we already have.
Your right, but is it Apple that did the update? I have a hacker that became a developer on my phone and has changed lots of software on my phone that would effect everyone’s phone. The apple library looks like what was on my phone by my neighbour the hacker 2-3 years ago
Way before this library exactly the same layout. A hacker can hack into the IOS and create an update and change software that would effect everyone’s phone… Did you know that having twin apps or any 2 apps the same you will have 2 accounts not the same so hackers can now view everything your doing from the same app using a different account..having the same apps.. this is happening to me and when I use an app another one appears on the dock even when it was not there before, even before the library…
Since this thread started, several updates have been released, none addressing the App Library clusterf*k.
Clearly, either (a) Cook is a complete Co*k that only responds to his shareholders and couldn’t give a flying f*k about the end user (aka you, the person who funds his hedonistic lifestyle), or (b) Apple got aboard the ‘Woke’ train-wreck and quota-employed some ill-equipped snowflake to run the dev team.
What we have here is the product of a mind that has learned to tidy their bedroom like a good little girl/boy:sis (…yawn), but has never actually ever left the house.
Apple didn’t die with Steve Jobs, it died when Cook took over. Get that cretin out, and maybe… just maybe… someone can still save the all-but-sunk Apple ship.
Personally, I’m loving my new Android – after a short learning curve, I can now do what I want, when I want, how I want. Utter freedom from brainwashed devs and Apple tyranny. !! With money I saved, I bought a new computer, too! ;-)
NEVER forget, it’s YOUR money. Vote with your wallet! To begin with, it’ll only affect how much caviar Cook puts on his toast, but in the long run he’ll have to sell somme of his luxury houses and phone for take-aways. Then, and only then, will things change. Maybe it’s all too late. And then again, maybe nobody cares anymore.
Apple please change the way we move apps too. get rid of the puzzle game bs and let me organize like my desktop. example- move apps and then lock to grid. having all the apps shuffle is not fun and very slow. and yes turn off app library option along with most features should have settings for the user to turn on and off. I an not here for apple experiments to see what works. try a focus group or something don’t just force users to accept features we do not want or need. Its an iPhone and an “applePhone”. get it?
The App Library is a folder, nothing more. It solves nothing and is incredibly annoying to some users. The only solution is to jail break your phone, install Cydian and download the tool to turn the library off. That will also allow you to turn off other functions and take full control of your device.
Apple is no longer the Apple after Steve Jobs pass on, adding so many useless features like the app library just turn Apple fans away
Amen!! I will cut the er cord? With you. If i could only attach a couple photos it would be amazing. On my home screen i have.
Phone, messages, camera, safari. All i want all i need. I can see the lovely picture of my wife and daughters. In my app library page?
Safari x 2
App store x2
Settings x2
Photos x 2
Phone
Messages
Contacts
Health (really? Cause we use actual health devices not this crap)
Maps
Contacts
Camera
Random box with: wallet (FU) clock, calculator, find my phone, another settings,
Safari, and App Store.
Yeah much less clutter Apple, that is redundant and wasteful. Only shows the ignorance of your system. You can keep it, i choose a different platform. Good thing i did not spend all that money on crap apple upgrade from my 6s.
I find it oddly disconcerting that Apple feels we the consumer are so stupid, that we need them to decide how to organize our apps for us. Treating us like a five year old feeding us redundancy, and insult our intelligence. If I want my phone to be a mess I guess that’s my F-ing choice. This literally is the last thing I’m typing on this iphone until app library is removed.
ABSOLUTELY LOATHE APPLE LIBRARY! Completely useless except to take up more of my phone’s memory of course- absolutely could do without widgets too! Ridiculous! I never agreed to the 14 upload & it did it anyway!! Beware ! If you say “ later” when asked if you want to upload a system now or later ( & you answer later because there’s no “ never “ option) this will toggle your automatic upload from off to on ! I fought with Apple over this to no avail! Horrible customer service! Horrible additions to force upon users !!
The App Library is a terrible and absolutely uselles feature. You can already use folders as well as the search feature.
So the App Library doesn’t bring anything new to the table just make the screen look like a mess.
What’s worse, you can’t even change the names of the App Library folders. Completely uselles.
Muscle memory is definitely my problem with this feature. My muscle memory tells me that swiping past the SINGLE page my app folders are on will bring up the camera; well, sucks to be me eh? They only just gave us the ability to remove or hide apps that are not being used an update or two ago, and now they put everything including those apps on another cluttered page? WTF was the person that dreamed this up thinking??
Tim, when are you going to LEAD? Respond to the complaints to the Apple Library. Don’t sit on your hands in your basement, acting like Biden. Get up, direct your stable of programmer nerds to extract the Library, making thousands of clients happy. Then establish SOPs ( Standard Operating Procedures) for staff to not originate new products with no input from end users. Perhaps review the decades of prior surveys, on making “user friendly” software. Somehow, you’ve switched from that to “employee happy” software (by keeping them on payroll, with no meaningful product output expected).
The widgets are driving me to look for non-iOS smartphone alternative. The widgets disappear, then reappear, in different and far less useful forms. I don’t have the words to describe how deeply infuriating this is.
I hate this App. Library!! A waste I can organize my apps in my own folders.
Stupid response on how to not see it.
“Don’t Swipe Past Your Last Home Screen.”
REALLY! This from Apple, super intelligent!!
Judy, the article describes what the options are right now, and not swiping past your Home Screen is the solution to not seeing App Library at the moment. It is not a stupid response, it is the way.
THIS!
Redundant. Paternalistic. Wasteful.
Will they next say in which pocket I should carry my phone?
They have clearly run out of creativity, making changes for the sake of change.
STUPID STUPID STUPID
REALLY ??
Please send an update for removal of the most rediculous app library.
I hate the App Library. I don’t agree with the folders they put apps in – some are so random.
So stupid really dont need my cell phone to impose how to use it when it already works fine! Apple wake up and listen to the people!
Dam you!!!
Absolutely stupid (library app) App! Who’s the idiot that created this. There are Apps I don’t want and accidentally downloaded. Please create a library app for unwanted apps. Or are you tracking me, if you would like to get really confused try following me in a car. Then we will both be lost.
Prefer to use that space to have a full photo view of my wallpaper, not cluttered with icons that I prefer to access at their old location. If this feature is useful to some, keep it as an option. But don’t force it on others who don’t like it, don’t use it, and prefer better uses of that space.
Do not need and would like it removed as soon as someone figures out the majority of your users do not want or appreciate it.
I’m with everyone else, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it! Why even change things just for the sake of change? I believe if Jobs were alive he would nix an idea like this or at least allow a patron to enable or disable this feature. Apparently the dweebs at Apple have come up with all they can think of to make their products desirable!
App library…another example of some lazy idiot 20 yr old developer who wants to take as many shortcuts in life as they can. No regard to any of us who have used an iphone efficiently for a decade and have it set up like we want. Every upgrade causes more problems. You want to change something in an upgrade? Give us the option to use it or not. And now with version 14.3 my emails disappear after 14 days in my inbox and guess what?? The setting to change that is now gone with this latest update. I don’t have that many I leave in my inbox but there are 2 or 3 that I need to follow up on with something and I want to delete or put in a folder when I want to. Not any more. Your phone will now do what apple wants it to do, not what you want it to do.
Why do they always say we’re stupid for not liking changes we can’t use that are forced on us? Maybe it wasn’t broke a you shouldn’t have “fixed” it. There has always been an option to put things in folders. Quit treating people like babies!
Great moments in product management; New Coke, removing the windows start button, iOS App Library.
App Library does not organize apps the way I want nor in categories I want. I don’t need someone micromanaging my apps.
Please remove App Library I don’t want it , it is just annoying and if this is not going to be removed will go to Android
Please remove App Library I don’t want it or am going to Android
I hate it. Where do you get off controlling how I want my apps to be used?
Make it an option please.
My home was not cluttered to begging with. Screw the App Library
Agree with everyone. Hate it. Thinking about changing brands.
ibid
Apps library is bull crap!!! You should treat this “new features” like a d**k!!! Let me have if I want to, but don’t shove it down my throat if I don’t ask it for!!!!!
Programmers love to change things to suit themselves. Many people don’t want these new functions and should be optional. Why would I want to add more steps to do the same task? This is supposed to “clean up “ the desk top but doubles my icons instead. I have turned off updates and will not download another update. May be time to go back to android.
App Library Blows – quit changing stuff just to change stuff you f******g m***ns.
Please remove App Library or am changing hand sets. I will use huawei or samsung
Stupid and annoying app!!!! I had ALL my apps nicely arranged only on one Home Screen and I definitely did NOT need apple to do it for me. Please make it optional so I can disable as soooooooooooon as only possible
Reading all these comments, hearing from all my colleagues at work and also my family there’s one thing they all have in common. This App Library should be optional.
If I would suggest this feature to my boss I would get asked questions to which I wouldn’t have good answers. I really don’t understand how this feature could make it to the end users, especially without an option to turn it off.
An update to turn it off would be quite easy. Don’t make us able to scroll to the right more than we have home screens and show all the apps on the home screen again.
Please Apple, you were so focussed on an intuitive user experience. Can’t you go back to that. I really don’t care about a 100 more emoticons or 8 more wallpapers. Please spend your time and money on something more useful. Just deliver a trustworthy platform that we can customize.
Please realize that most of your users have chosen to use iOS because it was more user (and family) friendly than Android. We want that back.
Granted my use case isn’t the most common, but I develop apps and have nearly 30 in the App Store. My testing devices used to have a single folder for “My Apps” and I could alphabetize them instead of having them appear in their own individual four unit folders in the library. Sure I can drag them back to the home screen, but making the Library the default behavior shows a complete disdain for the end user. How about offering the new behavior to the user, and if it sounds compelling, let them opt in?
Lame lame lame. Ditto ditto. Who is Apple to tell me how to place my apps? So many are wrong. MY phone should be editable to MY likes and categories. Not some 21 yo black framed eye glasses pocket protection wearing kid who knows nothing g about me. Just make a Fkn phone. Leave the customization to me
Dear apple idiots a BAD idea please take it of off my phone or else ?
Or else what u might ask ?
Answer- You will lose my customer Loyalty
And I do Dare to say it I will switch to!!!!
A NICE NEW SAMSUNG SMART PHONE.
Please remove from my phone ASAP
Please pleas Apple send me an update to remove this stupid add library !
I use to use to swipe to what is now the app library page that has deleted my favourites contacts phone number ?
The favourites contacts was so important to me as I have serious health issues and if I neede to get hold of anyone for help I could swipe to the first home page see picture of the people I needed to contact and just tap their picture it was fantastic! Now I have go into the phone and search all my contact before I can call for help !
THE NEW APP LIBRARY Is SH**.
Please at least allow me to Remove this UNWANTED APP COMPLETELY from My iPhone please get everyone involved in developing this new library app especially the person who Okayed it ? And shoot them!!! I am giving you a chance to fix this crap App Library and remove it completely from my phone Or u will lose me to SAMSUNG smart phone forever☹️😠😖😩☹️😢 probably along with a lot of other usually loyal i Phone users
( you fu****ng IDIOTS )
It’s an ugly, confusing mess.. And off topic, the alarm clock is undependable at best, worthless at least.
How do we complain to apple about this stupid App Library
Just make the App Library a widget that we can select or not. I didn’t like the new widget layout either, but finally got back to something like the way I had it before the iOS update. It makes more sense for the App Library to be a widget, up front for those who use it, than behind the home pages.
Like others have reported here, the folder titles don’t align with my views of those categories, app icons are too large or too small, categories I would like to see don’t exist and I think it provides less security for certain apps, like my Amazon apps are on the last page of my Home Screen, separated from the other pages by a page that has one junk app, so if someone had access to my phone and scrolled through the pages they might stop at the junk page before finding my Amazon apps where they could order whatever they wanted from my account. Maybe it’s not real security, but that’s how I want it, not a page someone can go to an access ALL my apps.
Adding to what already has been so well articulated in previous comments would be superfluous (like the app library). I would, however, ask Apple to please give a choice and allow us activate the library only if needed. Thank you.
This reminds me of Microsoft’s first introduction of the ribbon in their office suite… they have clearly based the design of this on the masses of ignorant users that don’t turn off the ‘automatically send Apple your private details on your usage habits’ – in exactly the same way that Microsoft did, they have released a product that is beyond useless; it irritates me every time i accidentally scroll right too far and see it. The ribbon is still irritating, grouping features in a way that doesn’t match my work flow, it is a shame that Apple is now moving in the same direction; interfering with my workflow rather than improving it…
Anyone with any idea of how to organise their icons already knows how to set them up in groups that make sense to them.
I don’t spend time searching for the apps i use because i spent a few seconds when I first get an app grouping it with the other apps in a way that make sense to me.
a simple option to turn the App Library OFF would be REALLY APPRECIATED!
I can’t stand it !!! To the extent I want to change to Samsung or anything .I really don’t want everything organised for me .and anyone can see all my app at a quick glance WHY APPLE WOULD YOU DO THIS not happy at all .don’t think u understand in this day and age privacy is key .
Yeah, it sucks to have it and not be able to turn it off. Doesn’t Apple realize I have a Home Screen wallpaper I like to swipe all the apps off of and just look at? Now I can’t do that because when I go to swipe the last screen, App Library bs pops up. 😡🤬
Get this crap off my phone. We already could group apps together by dragging them together into a folder. Except for the alphabetized list, the App Library screen is pointless and dumb to me.
Give the option of turning it OFF, #Apple!
Like almost everyone here I abhor this feature. I organise my apps the way I want to, thank you very much, not the way some fascist dictatorship wants me to.
I already have a folder on my otherwise empty last page, called ‘Apple Shit’ where I store all the stuff they otherwise refuse to allow me to delete. At the very least I need to be apple to put the whole app library inside this.
This app library is ridiculous and infuriating.
As many others have stated, I created all the folders I ever needed and named them so that I could always find what I wanted easily.
Who decided that they know better than me how to arrange my sh*t on my phone?
MAJOR FAIL!
Those are some pretty lame suggestions. The real alternative is to go back to any Android.
Why does Apple force crap on updates just to appeal to folks just converting from a land line to a mobile? That is why I resisted my family so long to get this “device.” I don’t have the same utility to delete total junk like Safari and their other lame junk!!!
The only thing cluttering my iPhone is the App Library.
App Library has to be the most annoying and pointless thing that Apple has ever done, at least to the iPhone.
I know very well how to arrange my apps in appropriate ways without Apple’s intervention. Apparently, Apple feels it necessary to aid its Kindergarten-level users, of which there may be more than anyone would have suspected. There must be hundreds in Apple’s hierarchy alone.
Even though I can see why Apple and some users might think it’s a good idea, it doesn’t with for me. The whole point of showing icons as the default view for apps you rarely use means you’re also not familiar with the icons, I just find it a confusing mess. If it must exist, how about default view options for list or icons, and an option for all apps or just those not on the main pages.
Like everybody else I’m seeing respond here, I hate the app library! The categories are all wrong for me, and they can’t even be edited!?! For instance, I use Notes to dictate “notes” to myself so as not to forget ideas for writing I’m working on. I use Mail almost exclusively for social interactions, and Zoom for school lectures, and WordPress to edit my artist website. In the app library, these are all lumped together with my banking and credit card apps and Contacts (which I use almost exclusively for phone numbers) and Calendar, which makes no sense at all. Frankly, “Productivity” isn’t even something I value! And putting all those in one group means most aren’t even visible. To find anything you have to open various folders until you hit the right one. The arrangement is useless! Plus it’s ugly! And saying it’s off to the side so we can just ignore it is like saying, “Yeah, I saw how somebody just left a heap of junk mail and useless papers in your family room, but it’s OK, you can just avoid that part of the house.” Get this thing off my otherwise beautiful phone!
Well said…my sentiments entirely!
My hack to never look at this abomination of a “feature”: move a single useless app to it’s own page on the homescreen, so when I swipe right and I see an empty screen with only one app, I know to swipe back left.
I haven’t seen the app library since the update. LOL.
Get rid of the App Library, at a minimum give the option to turn it off. It is TERRIBLE.
Definitely I want this App Library feature to be changed as optional, user selectable feature. I just hate those grouppings with tiny little icons. I want my iPhone’s screens as they used to be.
I have my apps organised into folders of my making. Everything is tidy and I can launch an app in seconds. I also have Aspergers and I don’t handle change very well. I downloaded iOS 14 and lots of things had changed which caused me a load of anxiety and now I have to spend days trying to get my phones appearance back to how it used to look. Come on apple, at least give us the option to disable functions we don’t want – we do actually own these phones, not you!
“App Library is one of the best new features…that iOS 14 has to offer for iPhone.”
-according to…?
As others have stated, this is really a waste of space for people who have organized their apps the way they like already.
Wow. So now Apple decides how I should sort my Apps and won’t let me disable or change that when it makes no sense. As humans we use apps so differently that curating them for us is ludicrous. The possible exception for this is my Father in Law who has more apps than you could ever use in a life. Mind you, if he hides his home screens and switches to the Library mode he will never see most of them again :)
apple library app is just a nuisance
I already had my apps organized they way I wanted them. I don’t need apple’s recommendations on how they need organized. Please give us an option to disable App Library
The idea behind this new functionality may be good (and that’s debatable) but the implementation is certainly flawed.
Apps that are identical in function end up in completely different groups that, by group title, make no sense. Recently installed apps. OK, so how long do they stay there? What’s Apple’s definition of recent? Finally, they need to give us, you know, the people who pay upwards (and over) $1K to own and use the phone, the option of using our own group names and to be able to move apps in and out of the groups to that they make logical sense.
Future update??
I don’t use the App Library feature, as I’ve organized my apps into folders long ago, and I don’t like the repeats and weird auto-organization of App Library.
You’re correct that app muscle memory is faster.
I’m not using Home Screen widgets either as I’m easily distracted and the new widget thing with varying bold lettering, loud colors, different shapes, is too Times Square for me personally.
I already have my apps organized by using folders – organizing them the way I want them. If I’m not sure where an app is I just use the search feature; easy to use from any page without scrolling to through the pages to reach one the end. Reminds me of how Android phones work, which I hate whenever I need to help someone with one. Did whomever came up with this idea come from Google? I’m not sure yet about widgets – just something more to take up screen space.