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

Four iPhone 18 Pro Colors Mock Feature

iPhone 18 Pro: Pre-Orders and Release Date

Thursday August 20, 2026 8:00 am PDT by
Apple has yet to reveal when the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Ultra will be announced and released, but the dates usually follow a familiar pattern. As usual, the iPhone event is expected to take place in the first half of September. Labor Day falls on September 7 this year. The last time the holiday was on that day was in 2020, but the iPhone event that year was delayed until October due to...
macOS 27 next to MacBook Pro Running macOS 27

macOS Golden Gate Marks the End of an Era

Thursday August 20, 2026 2:19 pm PDT by
macOS 27 Golden Gate is not compatible with any Macs with Intel processors, marking the end of an era. The update, which is currently in beta ahead of a release later this year, is limited to Apple silicon Macs with an M1 chip or newer. Last year, Apple said that macOS 26 Tahoe would be the final macOS release compatible with Intel-based Macs, so this was an expected development. Intel...
Aston Martin CarPlay Ultra Screen

Apple Says CarPlay Ultra is Coming to These Vehicle Brands

Wednesday August 19, 2026 12:53 pm PDT by
Last year, Apple launched CarPlay Ultra, the long-awaited next-generation version of its CarPlay software system for vehicles. More than a year later, CarPlay Ultra is still limited to Aston Martin's latest luxury vehicles, but that should change in the foreseeable future. In May 2025, Apple said many other vehicle brands planned to offer CarPlay Ultra, including Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis. ...