iOS 16: How to Delete a Lock Screen Wallpaper - MacRumors
Skip to Content

iOS 16: How to Delete a Lock Screen Wallpaper

by

With iOS 16, Apple overhauled the Lock Screen design to make it far more customizable, allowing you to personalize everything from the color and style of the clock font to the look of pictures used as wallpaper. iOS 16 also introduces Lock Screen widgets that provide you with glanceable app information without having to access the Home Screen.

astronomy widgets lock screen
To consolidate all of these changes, iOS 16 also brings a Lock Screen wallpaper gallery, allowing you to build a gallery of different Lock Screen wallpapers and switch between them on the fly with a swipe.

If you have an Apple Watch, the Lock Screen gallery interface will be familiar to you, since it's very similar to the way watch face customization works. Even the process of deleting wallpapers from the gallery is similar. Here's how it's done.

  1. Unlock your ‌‌iPhone‌‌ with Face ID or Touch ID.
  2. Press and hold on the Lock Screen to enter the wallpaper gallery.
  3. Swipe to the wallpaper you want to delete.
  4. Swipe upwards on the selected wallpaper.
  5. Tap the red trash icon that appears.
  6. Tap Delete at the prompt to confirm.
    Lock Screen

That's all there is to it. Now you can create as many Lock Screens as you like, safe in the knowledge that if you have too many or don't like what you've got, you can always use the delete function.

Popular Stories

M5 Vision Pro Thumb 2

Apple Has Given Up on the Vision Pro After M5 Refresh Flop

Wednesday April 29, 2026 11:31 am PDT by
Apple has all but given up on the Vision Pro after the M5 model failed to revitalize interest in the device, MacRumors has learned. Apple updated the Vision Pro with a faster M5 chip and a more comfortable band in October 2025, but there were no other hardware changes, and consumers still weren't interested. The Vision Pro has been criticized for its high price tag and its uncomfortable...
Four iPhone 18 Pro Colors Mock Feature

iPhone 18 Pro to Launch in September With These 10 New Features

Tuesday April 28, 2026 9:35 am PDT by
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are not launching until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. It was initially reported that the iPhone 18 Pro models would have fully under-screen Face ID, with only a front camera visible in the top-left corner of the screen. However, the latest rumors indicate that only one Face ID component will be moved under the...
iphone 17e magsafe

Apple Reportedly Questioning Whether iPhone Should Drop MagSafe

Wednesday April 29, 2026 8:26 am PDT by
A leaker claims Apple is currently embroiled in an internal debate over whether MagSafe should remain a standard iPhone feature. The Weibo leaker known as "Instant Digital" says that when MagSafe was first introduced, the mood inside Apple was reportedly aggressive about its expansion. MagSafe for the iPhone was introduced with the iPhone 12 lineup in 2020, bringing a ring of magnets to the...