Create Gaps Between App Icons for a Clean Layout

One of the nice customisation features in iOS 18 this year is that you can now position your app icons anywhere on your home screen. You’re no longer limited to that grid starting in the top left corner. Now, when you move the icons, they will automatically snap into a grid position, but this means you can leave gaps between them and create some really creative layouts.

For example, here I can move all of my app icons to the left side of my screen so they don’t block out my photo. To do that, I’m simply going to tap and hold on one of my icons and then drag it to where I want it to go on my screen.

Now, the way I want you to imagine this is that any icon you’ve dragged and dropped into a certain position will be pinned in that spot. But any icons that you haven’t repositioned yet will still flow freely using the old system. That means to change your whole home screen, you’ll need to position each of your icons where you want them to go.

I’m going to quickly do that while I’m talking, and you can see how this is already looking quite good. I’ve moved all of my icons now, apart from Flighty and TripAdvisor. To show you what I mean about them snapping back into the old place, I’m going to quickly delete that clock widget at the top. Straight away, you’ll see that the two app icons I haven’t manually positioned will fill that top-left spot as usual. But don’t worry—I can simply drag and drop them where I want them to go, and then they’re locked in place on my new home screen.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll probably spend a lot of time playing with this feature to make your home screen look absolutely perfect.

Now that iOS 18’s been released, there are so many more things your phone can do that it simply couldn’t do before. I spent my summer playing with iOS 18, and I’ve made a ton of QuickTip videos on my channel down below. But excitingly, I’ve also written my first eBook! I’ve called it 100 QuickTips for iOS 18, and if you follow the link below, I promise you’ll find things you never knew your phone could do now that you’ve updated to iOS 18. I’ll see you next time!