How to Hide or Disable iOS 14 App Library?

Wishing you could disable or hide the App Library on your iPhone after the iOS 14 update? 

Apple’s iOS 14 update came with a lot of brand new features. One of these features is the App Library, a feature that Android users are more familiar with. Since the recent September 16 release, Apple users all over the internet have mixed opinions about the addition.

To be frank, you cannot disable the App Library for now. This has caused a lot of mixed reactions from Apple users all over the forum. There is currently no shortcut or way to disable or hide the App Library feature from your iPhone.

Apple users have thankfully made a lot of complaints about this. Hopefully, in the future, Apple will add an option to disable this feature and revert to the old ways. In this article, we will go over what the App Library offers for your iPhone and how you revert back to installing apps on your home screen.

Let’s get started!

 

1. Why Was The App Library Added To The iOS?

A common problem for Apple users that has been solved long ago for Android users is having so many apps on your home screen. This can get extremely congested and annoying, especially when you don’t even use half of them regularly.

Although you could store your apps and programs into folders, hence the common use of the ‘Others’ folder, this would still leave an annoying folder on your home screen.  Having the App Library allows you to completely remove these unused apps on your home screen by having them readily available in your App Library.

This was introduced to us Apple users to give us the freedom of customizing what we want on our screen. Apple added the App Library to help Apple users avoid having disorganized home screens. Hopefully, with this in mind, this would enlighten you to utilize it to your preference.

 

2. Hide Your Home Screen Temporarily.

With the iOS 14, you can hide pages of your home screen so you can scroll to the edge for the App Library faster. If you’re trying to learn how to utilize the App Library, this trick will make it easier for you to navigate to it.

Hiding your home screen will only last temporarily until you decide to make them visible again. This also saves all existing arrangements of your apps, so you don’t have to worry about losing the order.

Here’s how you can hide your home screen temporarily:

  1. Press and hold any empty space available on your home screen. This will prompt your apps to jiggle.

  1. Now, there should be a small button with three circles near the bottom of your screen. Tap on it to go to the Edit Pages window.

hide or disable ios 14 app library

  1. Uncheck all the home screens you want to hide. This will leave you with your enabled home screen and the app library.

After this step, the screens you have to swipe to get to the App Library should be considerably fewer now.

 

3. Don’t Save Your New Apps in The App Library.

If you really want to avoid having to interact with the App Library, you can configure your settings to not install new apps into the library. This will send your new apps directly to your home screen, instead of the app library, which is the iOS 14 default.

Here’s how you can save your apps to your home screen instead of your App Library:

  1. First, open your Settings and go to Home Screen.
  2. A list of options regarding your newly downloaded apps should be present. Select Add to Home Screen.

hide or disable ios 14 app library

Now, newly installed applications should go directly to your home screen.

Sadly, this is pretty much all you can do to avoid using the feature until further notice. Many Apple users don’t like the feature and hate that they cannot simply disable it. Hopefully, on the next patch, Apple will provide a disable feature, but that is yet to come.

For now, if you’re reading this article recently after its release, then all you can do is wait for Apple’s response. Meanwhile, if you can’t stand the new iOS and the bugs that come with it, you can choose to downgrade to iOS 13 from iOS 14 by following this excellent step-by-step video by zollotech.

Now that you have reached the end of this article, we hope that this post helped answer your ‘How to Hide or Disable iOS 14 App Library?’ question and as well as explain the App Library’s purpose. If you have other questions related to this article, please feel free to leave a comment below.

If this guide helped you, please share it. 🙂

Author

  • Mako is a staff writer at Saint. He's been writing about tech for more than a decade. When he isn't reading about the latest news on Apple, he's busy studying cybersecurity, cryptocurrency, cloud computing, and other IT-related sectors. His exceptional work graces technology and Apple-related blogs like How-To Geek, VEED.io, Macgasm, onMac, PhotoWorkout, GameRant, and many more. He also has a Bachelors in Computer Science and has been writing since 2018, with over 400 posts published. LinkedIn X (Twitter)

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