Use the App Library and Home Screen to organize your iPad apps

iPadOS 15 offers new ways to find and organize the apps on your iPad. Learn how to use the App Library and arrange your Home Screen.

Use the App Library to find and open your apps

From your Home Screen, swipe your finger to the left until you see the App Library. Your apps are sorted in the App Library by category.

The apps that you use most frequently appear as large icons that you can tap to open the app directly. To see all the apps in each category, tap the group of smaller app icons. You can also tap the App Library search field to see an alphabetized list of all your apps.

When you install new apps, they're added to your App Library automatically, and you can change whether new apps also appear on your Home Screen.

iPad screen showing the App Library

How to search for an app in the App Library

  1. Go to the App Library, then tap the search field.
  2. Begin typing the name of the app that you're looking for. 
  3. Tap the app when it appears in the search results.

How to delete an app from the App Library

  1. Go to the App Library, then tap the search field.
  2. Scroll down the list of apps to find the one that you want to delete.
  3. Touch and hold the app icon, then tap Delete App Trash can icon.
  4. Tap Delete again to confirm.

If you can't delete an app that's not made by Apple, disable parental controls, then try deleting the app again.

Organize your Home Screen

Hide pages, rearrange pages, or move apps to the App Library—you can organize your iPad Home Screen to fit the way you work.

How to hide Home Screen pages

Animation showing an iPad Home Screen's pages being hidden

  1. Touch and hold an empty area on your Home Screen.
  2. Tap the dots near the bottom of your screen.
  3. Tap the circle under the page that you want to hide.
  4. Tap Done.

To unhide a page, repeat the steps above. Then you can use the App Library to quickly find apps hidden on different pages. 

How to rearrange Home Screen pages

  1. Touch and hold an empty area on your Home Screen.
  2. Tap the dots near the bottom of your screen.
  3. Drag a page to reorder it.
  4. Tap Done.

Move apps to the App Library

Instead of hiding a page on your Home Screen, you can move individual apps from the Home Screen to the App Library:

  1. Touch and hold the app.
  2. Tap Remove App.
  3. Tap Remove from Home Screen.

Change where new apps get downloaded

You can change where newly downloaded apps appear on your iPad, and show or hide the notifications that you see in the App Library.

Go to Settings > Home Screen & Dock, then customize the settings.

iPad screen showing Home Screen & Dock settings

Learn more

Learn how to customize the widgets on your Home Screen to keep information at your fingertips.

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