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

Apple Event Logo

Apple's Next Era Begins September 1

Thursday May 7, 2026 10:36 am PDT by
Apple recently announced that Tim Cook will be stepping down as CEO later this year, after 15 years of leading the company. Effective September 1, Apple's hardware engineering chief John Ternus will become the company's next CEO, while Cook will become executive chairman of Apple's board of directors. In his new role, Apple said Cook will assist with "certain aspects" of the company,...
Instagram Feature 2

PSA: Instagram Encrypted Messaging Ends on Friday, May 8

Tuesday May 5, 2026 8:24 am PDT by
Instagram will remove end-to-end encryption for direct messages between users from May 8, 2026. When the date comes around, Meta will potentially be able to see the contents of all messages between users on the social media platform. Encrypting messages has been an optional feature in Instagram since 2023, but in March of this year the social media platform quietly updated a help page to say ...
macbook neo launch day

Apple May Drop Base $599 MacBook Neo as Chip, DRAM Costs Climb

Thursday May 7, 2026 4:55 am PDT by
Apple is considering dropping the cheapest MacBook Neo configuration as one possible response to the rising cost of building the popular laptop, according to Taiwan-based tech columnist and former Bloomberg reporter Tim Culpan. The Neo currently starts at $599 for a 256GB model, with a 512GB version at $699. Writing in his latest Culpium newsletter, Culpan says cutting the entry-level...