Set Where New Apps are Download to on the iPad

Learn how to set if you want new apps downloaded to your Home Screen and App Library, or just your App Library.

When you download a new app on the iPad, by default it downloads to your Home Screen. Introduced in iPadOS 15, you can now set if you want it to download to both your Home Screen and App Library, or just the App Library. This way you can keep you Home Screens the way you want and have new apps only install to the App Library. If you want it on a Home Screen, you can easily install it on your Home Screen by dragging it from the App Library. See how to set where new apps are downloaded to on the iPad.

Video TranscriptIn this video, we’re going to look at how we can set where apps are downloaded on the iPad. We can have them download or installed on our Home Screens and the App Library, or just the App Library. Now, being that we’re working with the App Library, you do have to have at least iPad OSS 15 on your iPad. This was introduced with iPadOS 15. If you’re using an older version of iPadOS, it will always be installed, your apps will always be installed on your Home Screen. But with iPadOS 15, we can now set where we want it to download. Let’s see how this works. Let’s go to my iPad.

Now, as I mentioned in the introduction with iPadOS 15, Apple introduced the App Library. This is where I can find all of my apps. I tap on this, I can see my App Library. I swipe down, I can see all of my apps in alphabetical order. Every one of these apps is installed on my iPad, but also when I download an app, what it does is it also installs it on my Home Screen. So any new apps that I add to my iPad are going to show up on my Home Screens. As I add more apps, it’s also going to add more Home Screens.

Well, now that we have our App Library, what we can do is we can tell the iPad to only install new apps in the App Library. So then it doesn’t change our Home Screens here. So how do we do that? Well, all we have to do is just go into our Settings app and then we go over to Home Screen and Dock. You’re going to see an option for Newly Downloaded Apps. From here, what I am able to do is set it to Add to the Home Screens, or App Library only.

Now, if I do set it for adding it to the Home Screen, it is also going to add it to my library. Again, every app installed on your iPad is going to show up in your App Library.

So right now, the way that I have my iPad set is any app that I download from the App Store is going to be added to my Home Screen and to the App Library. Let’s go and change it to App Library. Now, if I go and add a new app from the App Store, it is only going to be installed on the App Library.

Now let’s say you install an app and it installs it in the App Library, and it did not install it on your Home Screen. Because you have it set for App Library only. How do you move that app from the App Library to your Home Screen? Maybe it’s an app that you use quite a bit. So you want to place it in your Dock or on one of your Home Screens. Well, it’s pretty simple. Let’s go and press in on the Home Button, and now let’s say I installed an app. I installed Dark Sky. It’s in my App Library here. I want to place it on my Home Screen. Well, all you have to do is just open up your App Library. You find the app, I’m just going to swipe down here, and then I swipe up until I find Dark Sky. I want to install this on my Home Screen. All I do is just drag the out and place it on my Home Screen. And now we can see we have Dark Sky on my Home Screen. And again, it is also in my App Library, again because every app on your iPad is located in your App Library.

So that’s how you can set where apps are downloaded to on your iPad. This was introduced with iPadOS 15 and the App Library. Basically what we’re able to do is set new apps to be downloaded to our Home Screen and the App Library, or just the App Library. So if you like how your home screens are set, I would recommend leaving it for installing in the App Library. If you like an app after you install it, you can just drag it out of the App Library and place it on one of your Home Screens. It’ll still remain in your App Library.

So that’s how we can set where apps are installed on the iPad.