Blank home screen on iPad or iPhone

Whether you’re after a minimal look or just want to see your beautiful wallpaper clearly, it’s easy to create a blank Home screen on your iPhone or iPad. Follow the steps below to learn how to do it.

Don’t worry, you won’t lose any apps by creating a blank Home screen on your device. Everything simply moves to the second Home screen instead.

Related:

• Why is my iPhone Home screen black or blank? How to fix it
• Live wallpapers not working on iPhone? Let’s fix it
• New Home screen features in iOS 14

How to fix a blank Home screen on your iPhone or iPad

You might have landed on this page because of a problem with your iPhone or iPad Home screen. If that’s the case, take a look at our other article to find out how to fix a black or blank Home screen on your iPhone or iPad.

This problem often occurs after an iOS update. So you might be able to fix it by connecting your device to a computer and reinstalling the software. If reading isn’t your thing, you can also watch our troubleshooting video where we explain what to do if your iPhone or iPad won’t turn on.

If you’re here because you want to create a blank Home screen, then just keep reading.

How to create a blank Home screen on your iPhone or iPad

All you need to do to create a blank Home screen is move every app to the second screen or later. This should work on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running almost any version of iOS or iPadOS.

Tap and hold an app and choose to Edit Home Screen from the action menu that appears. When every app starts jiggling, drag them one by one to the right edge of the screen to move them to the next Home screen.

To move multiple apps at once, tap and hold to start moving one app, then use a second finger to tap other apps. As you do so, a counter appears to show how many apps you’re holding at once. When you lift your first finger off the screen, all the apps drop in the new location.

After you move all your apps to a second screen, your first Home screen should be completely blank. You can admire your wallpaper in its unobstructed beauty and simply scroll to the next screen whenever you want to find an app.

Your iPhone or iPad should default to this blank Home screen whenever you swipe up from the bottom of the screen or click the Home button.

Create blank spaces on your iPhone or iPad Home screen

The method above should create an empty Home screen on most versions of iPadOS or iOS. However, iOS 11 and 12 are notorious for automatically removing blank Home screens after you create them.

If that happens, you can use the websites below to create blank Home screen spaces instead.

These spaces act like invisible apps. This means you can create a single blank space in the top-left corner of your Home screen so it looks empty, but it isn’t.

You can also use blank spaces to customize the app layout on your screen. If you want gaps between your apps, create a blank space and place it in between them.

To create blank spaces on your iPhone or iPad Home screen:

1. Go to Settings > Wallpaper > Choose a New Wallpaper. Select the wallpaper you want to use, but make sure you set it to Still by disabling the Live Photos option if there is one.
2. Then go to Settings > Accessibility > Motion and turn on the option to Reduce Motion.
3. Return to the Home screen, then tap and hold on an app and choose to Edit Home Screen.
4. Keep swiping left until you reach a blank Home screen, then press the Side button with the Volume Up button to take a screenshot. If your iPhone or iPad has a Home button, press the Side button with the Home button instead.
5. Finally, visit one of the following two websites using Safari and follow the instructions on that site to create blank icons for your Home screen:
   1. makeovr.io
   2. iEmpty.tooliphone.net

How to remove a blank Home screen

Removing a blank Home screen sometimes takes more time than you spent creating it. The process involves editing your app layout to move each app forward one screen again, which could be a big task if you have a lot of apps.

Fortunately, there’s a far easier alternative for iOS 14 users.

With this update, Apple made it possible to hide entire Home screens. So all you need to do is hide your blank Home screen, instead of changing your app layout.

To do so, tap and hold in a blank space on your Home screen to enter Jiggle mode. Then tap the Home screen dots at the bottom of the screen to view all your Home screens. Finally, tap the blank Home screen to turn it off and hide it from view.

You can return to this page at any time to unhide your blank Home screen if you change your mind again in the future.

Return to the default Home screen layout

If you messed up your Home screen or don’t like the empty look, it’s very simple to reset your layout back to the factory settings for a fresh start.

This doesn’t delete any of your apps. All it does is change the order of your apps to what it was when you first got your iPhone or iPad. Any third-party apps appear alphabetically from the third Home screen onwards.

This is also another quick way to remove blank Home screens from your iPhone or iPad if you aren’t running iOS 14.

To reset your Home screen layout, go to Settings > General > Reset. Choose to Reset Home Screen Layout and confirm you want to Reset Home Screen.

Live wallpapers don’t work on the Home screen

Adding a Live wallpaper to your iPhone or iPad is a great way to add some movement to the Lock screen. But unfortunately, Live wallpapers still don’t move on your Home screen, even if it’s otherwise completely empty.

There are lots of potential causes for Live wallpapers not working on your iPhone. But Apple never designed Live wallpapers to move on your Home screen.

That means you’ll need to stick to enjoying still wallpapers on your blank Home screen instead.

Dan Helyer( Senior Writer )

Dan is a freelance writer based in South West England.

He spent two years supervising repairs as a Genius Admin for Apple Retail and uses that knowledge to keep our troubleshooting guides up to date.

Long before that, Dan turned to Apple products from a musical background. Having owned iPods for years, he bought a MacBook to learn sound recording and production. It was using those skills that he gained a first-class Bachelor of Science in Sound Technology.