Set Where New Apps download to on the iPhone

When you download a new app on the iPhone, by default it downloads to your Home Screen. You can 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 iPhone.

Video TranscriptIn this video, we’re going to look at where we can set where the iPhone installs new apps. We can have it install on the Home Screen and the App Library, or just the App Library itself. Let’s see how this works. Let’s go to my iPhone.

Now as you most likely know when you install an app from the App Store, what it does is it installs it on your Home Screen. So in my case here, what it will do is it will install it on my second Home Screen here, because my first home screen was full, and then it will also install it in the App Library.

Now, if you’re not familiar with the App Library, this was introduced in iOS 14. If I swipe all the way over to my last Home Screen, we have my App Library. I can find all of the apps that are installed on my iPhone in this library. So when I swipe down, I can see them in alphabetical order.

Now, when you install an app from the App Store, what it will do, again by default, is it will install it on your Home Screen here and in that App Library. What you can do is you can tell the iPhone to only install it in the App Library, so it doesn’t install it on your Home Screen. Now you may want to do this if you have all of your Home Screens customized, when you download a new app, you do not want it to go to your Home Screen. You only want it to go to your App Library. So then it doesn’t muddy up your Home Screen. So how do we do that?

Well, we do that through the Settings app. So I’m going to swipe over to the left here until I find my Settings app. From here, what we need to do is go to Home Screen. Under Home Screen we have an option for where Newly Downloaded Apps are Downloaded To. Again, you can see we have here at the Home Screen, which means it’s going to add it to the Home Screen and the App Library, or what we can do is just say App Library only.

So when I tap on App Library Only, now, it will only show up in my App Library. Any app that I download, they will not show up on my Home Screens.

So how do we move an app from our App Library over to the Home Screen? Let’s say I download an app. I end up using it a lot. So I’d like to install it on a Home Screen. Well, to do that, all we have to do is just drag it out of the App Library.

So I’m going to swipe over to the left here until I get to my App Library. I’m going to swipe down so I can see my list. This is my favorite view for the App Library.

And let’s go with the Calculator app. I want to install this on my Home Screen. All I have to do is just take this, I drag it out and I place it on my Home Screen, and I can place it on any one of my Home Screens. So now this app here Calculator is going to be on my Home Screen and in my App Library.

If I remove it from my Home Screen, I tap on the minus. What I’m able to do is tell the iPhone to remove it from my Home Screen or delete the app. If I remove it from the Home Screen, it’s going to only show in my App Library. It will not show up my Home Screen, but I can also just delete the app altogether.

So that’s how you can set where new apps are downloaded to on the iPhone. You can set it to install only in your App Library, or you can have it install on your Home Screen and App Library. If you do set it to only install in your App Library, and do you like the app or you use it a lot, what you’re able to do is drag it out of the App Library and place it on your Home Screen. It will still remain in your App Library, but you will also find it on your Home Screen. When you remove that app, you have the choice of deleting the app from your iPhone altogether, or what you can do is remove it from your Home Screen, but it’ll still be accessible through your App Library.

So that’s how you set where your apps are downloaded to on the iPhone.