How to hide and unhide an app on your iPhone or iPad (and why you may want to)

Sometimes, you don't want your iPhone or iPad to display all installed apps right on the Home screen. The simplest method is long-pressing an icon, tapping the - (minus) icon next to it and choosing Remove from Home Screen . This banishes it to the App Library, but you can go further.

Maybe you want to declutter your iPhone and keep the list tidy, keep getting distracted by social media or don't want others seeing what you have installed. In these cases, iOS and iPadOS give you several ways to hide apps to keep them out of your (and others') view. While these methods aren't secret agent-level tricks that hide in plain sight, they're suitable for keeping icons out of view and locking anything that needs extra security. In case a full lock and hide isn't right for you, you can still remove apps from your screen or suppress their content around your phone.

We focus on iPhone and Face ID for brevity, but this works the same way on iPad and models that have Touch ID.

Prior to iOS 18, there was no official way to hide apps on iPhone or iPad; you had to stick one inside a folder to keep it out of view. Now, there's a better method. To hide an app, long-press it on your device's Home screen and choose Require Face ID . Doing so shows a new prompt that explains what happens upon locking. You have to authenticate with Face ID or your passcode to open it, notifications won't contain any details and its content won't show up in places like Spotlight searches or CarPlay.

It's a smart idea to lock financial tools for a second layer of security. You'll find lots of stories online of people being scammed by strangers who asked to use their phone in an "emergency." Once they have your phone in hand, it only takes seconds to transfer money to themselves using Venmo or similar. Even though you shouldn't hand your phone to a stranger in the first place, requiring re-authentication for the app prevents schemes like this.

Choosing Require Face ID keeps the icon where it is while requiring authentication every time you open it. Alternatively, pick Hide and Require Face ID to remove it from your Home screen and searches. After hiding an app, you'll get no notifications from it. You can't lock most default apps; this is limited to ones you've installed. And the status of what you've hidden doesn't sync to your other Apple devices.

Hidden apps live in a special folder, aptly called Hidden , at the bottom of the App Library. Swipe all the way to the rightmost page to see this. That Hidden folder appears blank no matter how many apps you have hidden (including zero). Tapping it requires you to authenticate before you can see what apps are inside, and then you'll need to verify again when opening one. To unhide something later, long-press on it in the Hidden folder, choose Don't Require Face ID , and the app will return to the top of the list after it verifies you. You can then search for it using Spotlight and drag it back to wherever you'd like.

While this process greatly reduces an app's visual presence on your device, it doesn't erase all traces. Anyone with your passcode can browse the Hidden folder, as well as the same list under Settings > Apps > Hidden apps .