How to customize your iPhone’s app icons?

Have you ever wanted to make your iPhone your own with your personalized style and flair? Of course, you can change your home screen wallpaper. But if you really want to personalize your phone why not create your own app icons?

It can be done using Apple’s built-in Shortcuts app. You won’t actually be changing the icons that apps come with – instead you’ll be creating separate shortcuts to the app. It’s a tedious and time-consuming process, but you can finally have a fully customized iPhone home screen.

Here’s how to do it:

• Before you start, it’s a good idea to find an icon for your new shortcut. There are loads of icon resources online (e.g. Flaticon) or if you’re artistic and/or ambitious you can create your own. Whether you use someone else’s or your own picture, save the picture in Photos.
• Okay let’s start. Find and tap the Shortcuts app. It is pre-installed; If you don’t see it right away on your home screen, swipe left until you get to the App Library and start typing “Shortcuts” in the top search bar.
• After entering the application, tap the “plus” sign in the upper right corner. Type the name of your new shortcut at the top and then tap “Add Action”.

• Shortcuts has a lot of interesting things to try. But what we want to do right now is to change the app icons. Type “Open app” in the search bar and then tap the “Open App” link.
• Tap the word “Application” that appears (quite lightly) next to the word “Open”. You will see a list of your apps; Choose what you want to customize.
• Now tap on the blue icon in the upper right corner. You will be taken back to your shortcut page.

• Tap “Add to Home Screen”.
• You will now see a preview of the icon (it will be a standard, uninteresting icon that Shortcuts automatically adds). Don’t worry – we’ll make it better.

• Tap the icon under “Home Screen Name and Icon”. You will have the option to take a photo, select a photo or select a file. Assuming you have already saved an image in Photo, tap “Select Photo” and choose the photo you want to use.
• If you have selected an existing photo, the highlighted area shows which part of the photo will appear as an icon; You can move the photo until you are satisfied with the specified part. Tap “Select” in the lower right corner.

• You will now see your new icon. If you haven’t added a name for your new shortcut, you can still do it here by typing the name next to the icon.
• Everything is ready? Tap Add in the upper right corner.
• You should see your new customized icon on your home screen. Congratulations!
• You’re likely to see two new icons on your home screen: one with your first boring icon and one with your cool new icon. In this case, press and hold the icon you don’t want and then select “Delete bookmark”. Remember, this (and any other you’ve created) is a bookmark/shortcut – not original.

• You can also hide the original app icon so that only the new one is visible. (Of course you don’t want to delete it completely; that will delete the app.)
• Long press the original app icon and select “Edit Home Screen”.
• Tap the minus sign. In the drop-down menu, tap “Remove from Home Screen”. The original icon is not deleted, only hidden; you can always find it in the Application Library.

One note: when you use your new icon to navigate to the app, you’ll occasionally get a small pop-up notification telling you the name of the original app, reminding you that it’s a shortcut. But the dropdown will only take a second or two, so it shouldn’t bother too much.

Update October 22, 2021 at 10:30 AM ET: This article was originally published on June 13, 2021; Updated to accommodate changes in iOS 15.