How-To

How to Hide Apps on iPhone Using Shortcuts

By Adam Davidson

Published February 27, 2023

Are there apps on your phone that you’d prefer to keep hidden from view? If so, learn how to hide apps on iPhone using Shortcuts in this guide.

There are some apps that we might prefer other people didn’t see on our phones. You might not want your grandmother spotting that you have a dating app front and center on your home menu, for example.

Thankfully, if you’re an iPhone user, you have a number of options. You can completely remove the apps from your phone, but you can also hide them so that they don’t appear anywhere on your home screens. If there’s an app that you use a lot that you simply want to disguise, you can use Shortcuts to create a fake app on your home screen. This fake app can say one thing but, in reality, it actually launches the app you’re trying to hide.

If you’re ready to keep some of your apps away from prying eyes, then here’s how to hide apps on your iPhone using Shortcuts.

How to Hide Apps on iPhone Using Shortcuts

It’s possible to remove apps from your home screen but keep them on your phone. However, if there’s an app you use frequently, it can be frustrating not to be able to keep it on your home screen for easy access.

The good news is that with Shortcuts, you can disguise any app on your iPhone to make it look like a completely different app. Your app will literally be hiding in plain sight.

To disguise an app using Shortcuts on an iPhone:

1. Open the Shortcuts app.
2. Tap the Plus (+) symbol in the top right-hand corner of the screen.
   
3. Tap Add Action.
   
4. Under Categories select Scripting.
   
5. Under Apps select Open App.
   
6. Tap App.
   
7. Choose the app you want to disguise.
   
8. Tap the name of the shortcut.
   
9. Select Rename.
   
10. Give the shortcut the name of an innocent-sounding app.
    
11. Tap the new shortcut name and select Choose Icon.
    
12. Select the background color for your app icon.
    
13. Select the symbol for your app icon. You can use the Search Symbols tool to find an appropriate symbol more quickly.
    
14. Once you’re happy with your fake app icon, tap Done.
    
15. At the bottom of the screen, tap the Share icon.
    
16. Select Add To Home Screen.
    
17. Ensure your fake app icon looks how you want it, and tap Add.
    
18. Your fake app will now appear on your home screen. When you tap it, the app you selected will launch.
    
19. When the app launches, you’ll see a notification from Shortcuts confirming that your Shortcut has run. According to Apple, this is ‘expected behavior’ for the app. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a simple way to permanently turn these notifications off.

How to Remove an App From Your Home Screen

Creating a fake app to launch an app you want to disguise won’t remove the app itself from your home screen. Once you’ve created your fake app, you’ll want to remove the real app from appearing on your home screen at all.

The good news is that you can remove the app from your home screen without deleting it from your iPhone.

To remove an app from your home screen on an iPhone:

1. Locate the app that you want to remove from your home screen.
2. Tap and hold the app.
3. Select Remove App.
   
4. Tap Remove From Home Screen. This will remove the app without deleting it or its data.
   
5. Your app will no longer appear on your home screen.
   
6. If you want to return the app to your home screen at any point, follow the instructions in the final section of this article.

How to Remove Multiple Apps From Your Home Screen

If you have multiple apps that you want to hide from your home screen, performing the steps above for each of them can become a little tedious. Thankfully, there is a simple way to remove multiple apps from your home screen at once.

To remove multiple apps from your home screen at once:

1. Collect together all the apps you want to hide onto one or more pages of your home screen. You can do this by tapping and holding onto an app until it starts to jiggle, and then dragging it to a new page.
2. Once you have all the apps you want to hide on one or more pages, tap and hold onto any app until all the apps start jiggling again.
3. At the bottom of the screen, tap on the Screen Navigation icon.
   
4. You’ll see a view of all of your home screens.
   
5. Locate the home screen or home screens that contain the apps you want to hide, and tap on the Check Mark beneath those screens so that those screens are unchecked.
   
6. Tap Done to save your changes.
   
7. When you swipe through your home screens, the hidden screens will no longer appear.
8. To make the apps appear on your home screen again, repeat the steps above and check the screen or screens that you previously unchecked.
9. Tap Done and those screens will reappear.

How to Find an App That Isn’t on Your Home Screen

Even when apps are hidden from your home screen, you can still use them on your iPhone. There are a couple of ways to access these hidden apps.

To find a hidden app using Spotlight:

1. Open Spotlight by swiping down from the middle of the screen.
2. Type the name of the app in the Search field.
   
3. Tap the appropriate app in the search results.
   
4. Your app will now open.

To find a hidden app using the App Library:

5. From your home screen, keep swiping left until you reach the App Library page.
   
6. This page contains all of the apps on your iPhone, even those which do not appear on your home screen.
7. Type the name of the app you want to open in the App Library Search field.
   
8. Tap the appropriate app to open it.
   

How to Return a Hidden App to Your Home Screen

If there is an app that you have removed from your home screen that you decide you want to return to your home screen, it’s simple enough to do in just a few taps.

To return a hidden app to your home screen:

1. Locate the app using one of the methods in the section above.
2. Instead of tapping the app to open it, tap and hold until you see a menu appear.
3. Select Add To Home Screen.
   
4. Your app will now reappear on your home screen.
   
5. The app may not appear in its original location. You may need to reposition it if you want to return it to its original spot.

Learn More iPhone Tips and Tricks

Learning how to hide apps on iPhone using Shortcuts ensures that you can keep using your favorite apps without worrying about anyone spotting them on your phone. Of course, the method isn’t foolproof; if someone tries to use your fake calculator app, for example, then they may end up opening an app you’d rather they hadn’t!

There are plenty of other useful iPhone tricks that are worth knowing. Did you know that you can schedule emails to send at specific times, for example? You can add widgets to your iPhone lock screen to see useful information even when your phone is locked. You can even play iMessage games on your iPhone.