How can you organise the apps on the home screen of your iOS device?

Rod


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When iTunes was updated to 12.7.x, the option to organize apps directly in iTunes was removed. This no longer an option. Management of apps is now relegated to your iPhone or iPad directly.

(If you want to let Apple know how you feel about this, you can provide feedback directly via this link: Feedback - iPhone - Apple)


I should point out that it is possible to go back to the previous version of iTunes where this feature still exists but it is a complex and risky procedure and means you will not get any future updates of iTunes so I haven't bothered to go into it here.

Interestingly no third party developer has produced an app for organizing/reorganizing your iOS apps. There is an app called Apple Configurator2 but it organizes apps on home screens only as a secondary function and not particularly well. In 2009 there was an app called AppButler which not only created folders and custom icons as well as page numbers and line breaks for your home screens but that fell by the wayside in iOS 3 and has not been heard of since.
So today with increased storage across iOS devices and an ever expanding range of apps available how do we reorganize and keep our iOS apps in a logical and orderly manner?

The answer is manually, on the device.

Anyone who has tried this knows that it is an awkward process. The apps all wiggle and move around, changing their order and positions as you drag the app across multiple home pages. If you let the app go accidentally it can change the content of that page pushing another app back to the previous page which if full will move another app back a page and so on. It can take some time to undo this, enough to put anyone off entirely. My wife uses the finder a lot, which is fine but it doesn't show you where the app is, it just opens it.

1. Hint number one here is never fill all of the empty spaces on any home screen. This little trick saves a lot of frustration and enables you to move apps from screen to screen without the unwanted automatic reshuffle. Personally I like to keep the bottom line of any page empty, (four spaces) even if that means having more screens. The limit is eleven, if you exceed that number the apps, although loaded and useable, will not be visible.

But this doesn't solve the basic problem; reorganizing all of your apps into some sort of intuitive order can take hours.

Apple provides a way to start in Settings > General > Reset > Reset Home Screen Layout.
This will put all of the Native apps on the first Home Screen and the rest in alphabetical order over the other screens. Be warned, it will also remove any folders you may have created.
Some might find that this is enough. After all alphabetical order is fine.

The above is how I started my reorganization. From that point I removed all Native apps I didn't use at all from the first home page to the last page eg. Stocks.
Then I replaced those with the other apps I used most.
I emptied the next page and began setting up "like function" apps in rows using Alexandre Levacher's method (The Startup) Medium
Once you start this method it's easy to build on it over time. So my second home page now looks like this;

IMG_1100.png

This method works on the assumption that I have four or more apps in the same category and in a lot of cases this is true but like me you will find that in some cases you only have two or three. In this case I have used folders.

The bottom line here is that all this is difficult and time consuming, especially if you have eight pages of apps or more, I only had five.

Obviously it would be much easier on a larger screen where all of the home screens were visible simultaneously, using a mouse to drag and drop.

Do not despair, I contacted DigiDNA the developers of iMazing and suggested a function similar to the old iTunes method of screen management would be a popular addition to their already successful app and they replied, "it is one of the most requested features we have in development, so you can be sure that if it is possible, it will get released in one of the future updates."
 

Slydude

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Excellent info Rod. Many of our members miss the ability to organize apps via iTunes. Your tips make that a bit less awkward.

I've been using an app called iMazing to organize apps. It's a third-party app available for Mac and Windows. One of the many things it can do is organize apps on the IOS device in a way that is simillar to the way it was done in iTunes. I'm sure there are othher apps that do this as well but iMazing is the one I prefer at the moment. Brfore anyone asks I have no connection ot the company other than being a customer.
 
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Thanks, funny thing is I just thought there would be “an app for that” either OSX or iOS but when I started searching I was amazed at how many people were complaining about the loss of the option to do this in iTunes.
 

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Great Post, Rod.

I think your single most helpful tip is always to keep the bottom row free, or mostly free, of apps to facilitate moving apps between screens.

Ian
 
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Thanks, funny thing is I just thought there would be “an app for that” either OSX or iOS but when I started searching I was amazed at how many people were complaining about the loss of the option to do this in iTunes.
I think Sly just said he uses iMazing to do that?

He said, “I’ve been using an app called iMazing to organize apps.”
 

Slydude

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I'm going to go put my dunce hat on for a while now.

I could have sworn that I used iMazing recently to move apps around but apparently not. It does allow you to download apps that you have already purchesed to your Mac. It can do other things as well such as backup the device, delete apps and their data, or reinstall an app to your IOS device if it's on your Mac. See here if you're video oriented.
 
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App management is definitely a big part of what iMazing does in fact the only thing it doesn’t do is allow visualisation of home screens for the purpose of moving and reorganisation on multiple home screens. As mentioned in my quote from the developers reply it is a common request. I’m sure they would win a lot of hearts if they incorporated this feature and I’m sure they know that too.
 
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Ian, thanks for that, I agree wholeheartedly, keeping vacant spaces on any home screen is a simple but really integral part of managing home screens. Until I started this exercise I didn't realise how important it is.
 
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Wow, had no idea. I use a few folders for travel, finance etc but don't have a problem moving apps around. Ickle female fingertips?
 
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Yes well Sue, apparently lots of people have 200+ apps and 8 or more pages.
 
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I'd be happy if iMazing would just get my XS screen to display properly in iMazing. Right now all l see is the left upper quarter of the screen. Before they can move icons around, they need to be able to display them properly.
 

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Seems to be displaying ok for me will h the XS. Or at lest it was a couple of days ago when I checked last.
 
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Sly, mine shows the first page of icons when the phone is unlocked, but when it's in lock mode, the lock screen only shows the upper left quadrant. And it never shows anything BUT the first set of icons. Are you seeing something different?
 
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Mine too but I'm still on a iPhone 7 as you can see. Are you using this version?

2018-12-06 12:50:37.png
 
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Yep, latest version. I do have a custom home screen created with the app Over so that my home phone number and emergency contact information is on the lock screen, so maybe that's it. I don't want to change and iMazing used to work just fine with it, but when I got the XS, it wouldn't show properly any more. I thought it was iMazing not being updated for the XS, but maybe it's Over, although the software has updated since the X came out.
 

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Boy am I glad this thread got started otherwise I would never have noticed this problem.

Rod, I don't use the Manage Apps function often so I hadn't noticed the problem that you are seeing. It turns out that I'm having almost the exact same issue. If I go to the screen shown in your post, iMazing only shows 15 of the 23 apps on my first screen. The only difference is that it seems to show mw the same amount of information regardless oof whether it is in locked or unlocked mode.

My iMazing version numbers are the same as yours. I also haven't updated to IOS 12.1.1 yets. Still on the previous version. Doing the update now.
 
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Mine too, if you look closely you will see an “if found” message at the bottom but I use Lockscreen.
 
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I ran Over again, changed nothing, but now iMazing can show the entire screen. That's weird.
 
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I ran Over again, changed nothing, but now iMazing can show the entire screen. That's weird.



Sorry, but do I dare ask what "Over" is??? Or did I miss something obvious???

Whatever it is or does, it sounds like it can fix some problems. ;)





- Patrick
======
 
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Over is an app on the iPhone to let you add text to a photo, any photo, and then make it your wallpaper on the iPhone. I have a picture of my wife, with my emergency contact information on the lock screen that I created with over. It's in the iTunes store.
 

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