It's fun to give yourself a cool iPhone Home Screen layout. Grouping apps into various folders on different pages is a good way to keep yourself organized, but there are more creative ways to organize your iPhone Home Screen layout as well.

Here are the best Home Screen layout ideas if you want to do something different with your iPhone.

Customizing Your iPhone Home Screen

There are countless ways to customize your iPhone's Home Screen by utilizing widgets and the App Library in iOS. However, in this guide, we're only focusing on different app layout ideas. These offer creative methods to organize your apps.

Many of the layouts below call for customized app icons. To create these, you need to use the Shortcuts app to create an iOS shortcut that opens an app. You can then add that shortcut to your Home Screen with a custom icon.

You may also need to remove apps from your Home Screen for some of the layouts below. To do this, tap and hold an app to open a popup menu, choose Remove App, then choose Remove from Home Screen. You can access the removed app in your iPhone's App Library or by manually searching for it via Spotlight.

1. The Minimalist

Minimalist

For this Home Screen layout, remove every app from your Home Screen. You can then choose to add a single app or folder to the Dock. Or, if you prefer, keep your Home Screen completely empty and enjoy a clear view of your wallpaper.

This layout is as simple as it can get. If you consider yourself a minimalist, this could be the best iPhone Home Screen layout to use. It's easy to set up, and you won't ever have to think about managing your iPhone Home Screen pages and whatnot.

When you want to open an app, swipe down on the Home Screen or tap Search and type the first letter or two of the app you're after. Your iPhone should find it almost immediately; just tap it in the search results to open it. You can always go rooting through the App Library as well.

2. Monochrome

Monochromatic Home Screen layout

Use the Shortcuts app to create black, white, or gray icons for your favorite apps. Some system apps like Settings and Camera already use grayscale icons, so you don't need to worry about those.

After creating your monochromatic app shortcuts, remove all the original apps from the Home Screen.

3. Color-Coded

Color-Coded Home Screen layout

Another color-based alternative is to replace your apps with color-coded Shortcuts. Why not make social apps green, games red, and entertainment apps blue? A color-coded iPhone Home Screen layout makes it easy to focus only on the apps you need at a particular time.

This could also be useful for anyone with color blindness, as you can choose colors for different app groups that you find easy to distinguish.

4. The Menu

Menu Home Screen layout

This iPhone Home Screen layout is a great idea for anybody who likes to have many options without a lot of clutter.

Instead of grouping apps into folders, create shortcuts with list menus that let you choose between multiple apps to open. You can give each shortcut a name, icon, and color that represents the group of apps it contains.

Use the Choose from Menu action in Shortcuts to create a list of apps to choose from. For example, create a shortcut called Social that offers a menu of messaging apps: WhatsApp, Messages, Messenger, and so on.

5. The Monogram

Monogram Home Screen layout

Thought you were stuck with the grid layout on your iPhone Home Screen? Think again! You can utilize iEmpty to create blank icons that match your wallpaper, then use those icons to create spaces in your Home Screen layout.

This opens up a world of possibilities, including the option of spelling your initials with the app icons.

6. Dockless

Dockless Home Screen layout

The Dock loses its importance if you keep all your apps on a single screen instead of having them spread across multiple pages. So use a clever trick to hide your iPhone Dock instead.

This involves changing your wallpaper to one that conceals the Dock. Fortunately, there are plenty of wallpaper options to choose from.

7. The One-Hander

One-Handed Home Screen layout

Big screens are awesome, but reaching for icons at the furthest edges of the display can literally be a pain. Instead of practicing fingertip yoga every time you want to open an app, why not keep your icons all down one side?

Use iEmpty to create blank spaces in your iPhone Home Screen layout, allowing you to move the remaining apps to whichever side you want them.

8. The Bottom Line

Bottom Line Home Screen layout

Apple knows the bottom of the screen is prime real estate since it's the easiest part to reach. That's why the Dock is down there.

Thus, it makes sense to ignore the top of the iPhone Home Screen completely and use blank icons to shift your app icons towards the bottom.

If you need assistance implementing any of our Home Screen layouts that require creating blank icons, don't worry. We have a guide on creating a blank iPhone Home Screen using iEmpty.

9. The Noticeboard

iPhone 12 template

This iPhone Home Screen layout is the best for people who feel anxious about seeing too many notifications at once.

Just group apps that use notification badges into urgent and non-urgent folders so that you can see how many apps really need your attention at a glance. Not all notifications are equally important, after all.

10. Work/Play

Work/Play Home Screen layout

With this layout, keep work-related apps on one page and entertainment apps that you only use outside of working hours go on another.

Combine this with your iPhone's Focus feature to automatically hide your work Home Screen at the end of the workday. For even better productivity, use Downtime to disable everything on the play screen during working hours as well.

11. Incognito

Incognito Home Screen layout

Got a secret app you don't want anyone to know about? Use Shortcuts or iEmpty to create an invisible icon for it, then name it with an invisible Unicode character from Empty Characters.

If you keep at least one empty row per Home Screen, nobody will ever know you've got a top-secret app stashed there.

12. The Librarian

Librarian Home Screen layout

Can't decide how to organize your iPhone apps? Unable to choose between sorting icons by style or classifying them by color? Take the librarian's option and arrange your apps in alphabetical order instead.

Never again will you agonize over where to put that new utility or game. Simply slot it into place according to its name. For this layout, you can go the extra mile by using different iPhone apps to customize your Home Screen design.

13. The Heavy Load

Heavy Load iPhone Home Screen layout

If you have a lot of apps, pack them into several folders so you don't need to swipe through endless Home Screens to view everything. It's best to organize your folders by app category: work, health, finance, entertainment, and so on.

The App Library does this automatically, but you have no control over how each app is categorized. This is a much better option if you want to know exactly where to find each app.

If you're struggling to think of good folder name ideas for this Home Screen layout, you could also use emojis to give quick, colorful representations for each one.

14. The Rainbow

Rainbow Home Screen layout

Most app icons feature a single color that stands out above all others. Thanks to this, you can create a stunning iPhone Home Screen layout by arranging your apps according to their primary color to form a rainbow.

As an added bonus, this makes a lot of apps easier to find since it's easier to picture the app icon than remember where it sits in your layout.

For app icons that combine multiple colors, move them to a separate screen at the end of the rainbow.

15. Two-Page Priorities

Two-Page Home Screen layout

It's best to keep your most important apps within reach at all times. The easiest way to do this is to add your favorite four apps to the Dock, then prioritize the next-most important apps on your first Home Screen.

After that, add everything else into separate folders on the second Home Screen page, so everything's only a swipe away. Alternatively, only use a single Home Screen and relegate everything else to the App Library.

16. Quick Access

iPhone Home Screen layout with widgets

You probably have lots of apps installed on your iPhone. To make it easy to keep up with what's important and perform common actions quicker, you can use widgets provided by your essential apps.

This is especially true with interactive widgets on your iPhone and iPad that Apple introduced alongside iOS 17. With interactive widgets, you may not need to open an app to perform a given action as long as it's offered via a widget.

Simply tap any empty space in your Home Screen, then tap the Plus (+) button in the top-left corner to find and select the widgets you'd like to add. For important apps that don't have dedicated widgets, add them to the Dock.

Think Outside the Box for the Best Home Screen Layout

Despite the restrictions that Apple puts on the iPhone Home Screen, with a little out-of-the-box thinking and some simple tricks, you can come up with all sorts of creative app layouts and make your device stand out.

Remember that you're not limited to these Home Screen layout ideas for your iPhone. So, feel free to take inspiration and make minor adjustments that suit your preferences to create the best iPhone Home Screen layout for you.