iOS 18 Lets You Hide App Labels on Your iPhone Home Screen

As part of its Home Screen customization overhaul, iOS 18 lets iPhone users hide the labels on app icons for a cleaner look.

hide app labels ios 18
Turning off the labels causes the icons to expand and take up the space where the text usually appears underneath. Here's how it currently works in the iOS 18 Developer Beta.

  1. On the Home Screen, press and hold on an empty area.
  2. Tap Edit in the top-left corner.
  3. Tap Customize.
  4. In the customization menu that appears, tap the Large button.
  5. Tap anywhere on the Home Screen to save your preference.

Home Screen

As things stand, it's not possible to hide labels and keep app icons small, but this could change in succeeding beta versions.

In addition to hiding app labels, other new Home Screen customization options in iOS 18 include the ability to place app icons anywhere, and a dark tint option for app icons.

Read our iOS 18 announcement coverage for more details about the update, which is now available in beta for members of the Apple Developer Program.

Related Roundups: iOS 18, iPadOS 18
Related Forums: iOS 18, iPadOS 18

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Top Rated Comments

kirky29 Avatar
11 months ago
I mean, they could have let us make the icons smaller, so we can fit more on a row AND remove labels, not exactly difficult I'm sure. :-/
Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nortonandreev Avatar
11 months ago
Has Apple fired their designers, LMAO. What is this...
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
shenfrey Avatar
11 months ago

Has Apple fired their designers, LMAO. What is this...
This, is called choice. It's a great thing.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sunapple Avatar
11 months ago
My Home Screen has looked like this for the past year or so. Clean enough for you?



Attachment Image
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jonnysods Avatar
11 months ago
100% using this!
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Fuzzball84 Avatar
11 months ago
This was a feature first proposed during an internal ideas meeting at Apple for iOS 4.

The person was told to keep it up their sleeve for iOS18

? Joking, but amazing how such simple ideas can take so many versions of an OS to make an appearance.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)