Apple keeps adding more and more apps to your iPhone or iPad with every release. Most recently, they added an “Apple Watch” app that exists only to advertise the Apple Watch. Stocks, Tips, Compass, Newsstand, and other apps are used by few people and just add clutter.
While you can “disable” included apps to hide them on Android, there’s no obvious way to uninstall, hide, or otherwise get rid of Apple’s included apps on an iPhone or iPad. But you can get them out of your way with a few tricks.
Make a Junk App Folder
Most seasoned iPhone users hide the included apps they don’t use in a folder. Just make a folder and place all the apps you don’t want to use in that folder. All those unused apps will collectively take up a single icon on your home screen, rather than potentially an entire screen of icons.
To get started, just long-press any app icon on your home screen. You’ll switch to “edit mode,” where you can normally uninstall apps by tapping an x — but that x won’t appear on top of Apple’s pre-installed applications.
To create a folder, drag an app’s icon onto another app’s icon. Those two apps will be combined in a folder. Drag other app icons onto the folder to add them. Tap the folder and you’ll be able to name it something like “Extras,” “Apple,” “Junk,” or whatever other name you want. Press the Home button when you’re done.
Thankfully, Apple now allows the Newsstand app to be tucked away into a folder. Previous versions of iOS forced you to keep it on your homescreen. Folders can also hold many more app icons — fifteen pages of icons at nine icons a page means you can have up to 135 apps in a single folder.
You can hide this folder out of the way, too. In edit mode, long-press the folder and then drag it to the right onto another screen. You could have all your most-used apps on the left-most home screen and hide the folder with junk apps on the right-most home screen.
Yes, those apps will continue using valuable storage on your iPhone or iPad. There’s no way to remove them completely without jailbreaking. If you’re hiding an included app like the Mail app because you never want to use it, you may also want to go into Settings and ensure that app isn’t automatically downloading emails or doing anything else in the background. This will save you some battery power and mobile data usage.
Nest Folders Inside Other Folders
A few bugs in iOS allow you to hide these apps a bit better. For example, you normally can’t “nest” folders one inside of the other. But a trick — tested in iOS 8 — allows you to place one folder inside another. (This bug may be fixed in a future version of iOS, but it’s been around in this form since iOS 7.1.)
To do this, first create a folder with the apps you want to hide in it. Next, place two app icons next to each other on the home screen. Place one app icon over the other app icon to create a new folder. A folder will appear under your finger. When it does, quickly grab the folder you created earlier and keep your finger pressed down. The screen should zoom into the new folder you just created while you’re holding the old folder with your finger. Release the old folder and it will be placed inside the new folder. You now have a folder within a folder — perfect for hiding those apps you never want to see even deeper.
There’s also be a trick that allows you to temporarily “hide” an app icon by manipulating it in such a way that it vanishes from your home screen. However, this isn’t the best solution — the app icon will come back the next time you reboot your phone or tablet.
Jailbreak Your iPhone or iPad
No, we don’t recommend jailbreaking your iPhone or iPad unless you know what you’re doing and really want to tweak your phone in a way that Apple doesn’t support. You give up quite a bit when you jailbreak, including timely access to updates — new versions of iOS often close jailbreak holes, so you’ll often need to wait quite a while to upgrade or you’ll lose your jailbreak tweaks.
But jailbreaking is the only way to actually, completely remove Apple’s included apps. If you’re already jailbreaking, go ahead and remove them — but, if you’re not already jailbreaking, it’s definitely not worth jailbreaking to hide the Apple Watch app. Just tuck it away in a folder along with all the other apps you don’t want to use and get on with your life.
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