Apple provides numerous methods to personalize the Home Screen on your iPhone, ranging from adding widgets and setting up rotating wallpapers to hiding apps and entire pages. However, some of the most effective personalization techniques aren't officially advertised by Apple, either because they're not yet official features or because Apple allows unofficial workarounds.

One customization option currently unavailable through official means is the ability to freely position apps, folders, and widgets anywhere you'd like, rather than being limited to a strict left-to-right, top-to-bottom layout. While there have been various workarounds for rearranging Home Screen elements, they tend to be cumbersome and inconvenient. However, it's rumored that iOS 18 will finally introduce this free placement feature natively.

In iOS 17, you could use one of these unofficial positioning tricks to better organize your Home Screen, but there are even more creative ways to personalize beyond basic settings. Below are six such hidden "features" you won’t find Apple promoting directly.

1. Choose Alternate App Icons

Some iOS apps offer an underutilized feature that lets you switch their Home Screen icons to alternative designs provided by the developers. Although Apple provides guidelines for implementing this functionality, it's up to individual app developers whether or not to inform users about it.

If alternate icons are available, you can usually access them via in-app settings, the app's preferences in Settings, or sometimes as a quick action when pressing the icon. For convenience, you may want to refer to our full list of apps that allow you to change their Home Screen icons. The images below show options currently available for Slack, Target, and DuckDuckGo.

• Full Guide: Always-Updated List of Apps That Let You Change Their Home Screen Icons on Your iPhone

2. Create Your Own App Icons

With the release of iOS 12, users started experimenting with customizing app icons using the Shortcuts app. The trend gained popularity with iOS 14, which improved shortcut functionality, allowing users to hide the original app and display only the custom version instead.

Despite its popularity, Apple has never officially promoted or explained how to create custom app icons, likely due to the method's limitations.

Here’s how it works: Start by creating a new shortcut and add the "Open App" action, selecting the desired app. Then tap the shortcut's name at the top, the info (i) button, or the share button, and select "Add to Home Screen." Rename the shortcut to match the app, then tap the image button, choose your import method, and select your preferred custom icon image. Finish by tapping "Add."

Once added, you can remove the original app icon from your Home Screen and move it to the App Library, where both versions will appear. While the original remains visible in the App Library, many users consider this a reasonable compromise. For step-by-step instructions, check out our detailed guide on creating custom app icons for your Home Screen.

• Full Guide: How to Use Custom App Icon Images to Modify Your iPhone's Home Screen Look

3. Write Messages to Yourself

You can rename folders on a single Home Screen page to spell out motivational quotes, reminders, or other messages. To do this, create a grid of folders, enter the Home Screen editing mode, and name each folder accordingly until your message is complete.

For more flexibility, replace standard app icons with shortcuts created using the Shortcuts app, as described earlier. Keep in mind that text must be assigned while placing the shortcuts on the Home Screen, not afterward.

4. Remove Folder Names

To achieve a cleaner look, you can eliminate folder names and rely solely on the small icons inside each folder. Enter the Home Screen editor and replace each folder name with a special invisible Unicode character, such as the braille blank space shown below:

<code>[?]     U 2800  Braille blank space</code>

Deleting the folder name outright won’t work — you must use an invisible character. For more information and additional invisible characters, see our full guide to removing folder names on your Home Screen.

• Full Guide: How to Hide All Folder Names on Your iPhone or iPad's Home Screen

5. Remove App Names

Removing app names isn't as straightforward as removing folder names. Instead, you'll need to use shortcuts as described above for custom icons.

Create a shortcut using the same process, but keep the original app icon when adding it to your Home Screen. Before finalizing, leave the name field empty and hit "Add." Unlike folder names, no special invisible character is required — just leave the name blank. These shortcuts will also appear in the App Library, positioned near the bottom.

For more details and tips, refer to our comprehensive guide to hiding app icon names on your Home Screen.

• Full Guide: How to Hide All App Names on Your iPhone or iPad's Home Screen

6. Create Contact Pages

While Apple offers a Contacts widget that displays up to six contacts on your Home Screen, it uses valuable space inefficiently. Using different widget sizes, you can display up to nine contacts per screen. For a more flexible contact page that you can show or hide as needed, the Shortcuts app comes in handy again.

Using two Shortcut widgets, you can fit up to 12 contacts per page, though without photos. Alternatively, create a shortcut for each contact with a custom image and add them to your Home Screen. This method allows up to 24 contacts per page, and you can even hide their names if you prefer visual identification only.

See our guide on converting contacts into Home Screen shortcuts for detailed steps and ideas for further customization.

• Full Guide: How to Turn Your Contacts into Apps on Your iPhone's Home Screen

Don't Miss: These Browsers Let You Add Web Apps and Bookmarks to Your iPhone's Home Screen

Cover photo and screenshots by Justin Meyers/Gadget Hacks

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