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Your Home Screen is more customizable than ever before. The latest software updates from Apple now allow you to change the color and size of your app icons to better match your personal aesthetic. Here’s how to customize app icons on your iPhone.
Why You’ll Love This Tip:
- Personalize the apps on your Home Screen to match the wallpaper.
- Switch between dark and light icons depending on the time of day.
How To Customize App Icons in iOS 18
System Requirements
This tip works on iPhones running iOS 18 or later. Find out how to update to the latest version of iOS.
Customizing app icons used to be complicated, requiring you to use the Shortcuts app and do them one app at a time. With iOS 18, it just takes a few taps! So how do you change app icons? Here’s how to change the color scheme of the app icons and widgets on your Home Screens:
- Tap and hold an empty space on your Home Screen until your icons wiggle, indicating that you are in editing mode.
![iphone home screen with a red box around an empty area, indicating to tap and hold]()
- Tap Edit.
![iphone home screen editing mode with a red box around edit button]()
- Select Customize.
![iphone home screen editing mode with a red box around customize button]()
- Here you can pick between Automatic, Dark, Light, and Tinted. Automatic is the default setting and will change your icons from light or dark based on whether your iPhone uses Dark or Light mode.
![iphone home screen customization menu with a red box around automatic icon setting]()
- Dark simply changes all of your compatible app icons to a dark tone, regardless of your system theme.
![iphone home screen customization menu with a red box around dark icon setting]()
- Light changes all of your compatible app icons to a light tone, regardless of your system theme.
![iphone home screen customization menu with a red box around light icon setting]()
- The option that lets you pick custom colors is Tinted.
![iphone home screen customization menu with a red box around tinted icon setting]()
- The first time you do this, it will automatically pick a color scheme that matches your wallpaper. You can also customize it by using the sliders to change the color and shade.
![iphone home screen app tint customization menu with a red box around color sliders]()
- You can also use the eyedropper to pick a color from your background to find an exact match.
![iphone home screen app tint customization menu with a red box around eyedropper tool]()
- If you tap on the sun icon you can pick between a lighter look or a darker look.
![iphone home screen app tint customization menu with a red box around sun icon]()
- If you select Large, you will see larger app icons and no text underneath them. If you select Small, you will see the default-sized icons with the app names underneath them.
![iphone home screen app tint customization menu with a red box around small and large icon buttons]()
- To finalize your selections, just tap outside of the editing menu.
![iphone home screen app tint customization menu with a red box around an empty space, indicating to tap there]()
- Your selections will also apply to widgets, including your Photos widget (so your photos will appear tinted).
![iphone home screen with tinted icons and widgets, with a red box around the widgets, indicating that the color customization options have applied to the widgets too]()
Note
The color scheme you pick will not only apply to the apps and widgets on your Home Screen Pages but also to your App Library and the Today View. Keep in mind that some third-party apps have their own customization settings and won’t change based on the settings you change above.
That’s how to change app icon colors on iOS 18. After playing around with various shades and colors, I ended up switching back to my regular Light Home Screen. Even though the duotone colors are calming, I enjoy having a bright colorful Home Screen too much to use this new feature. I do enjoy the larger app icons with no visible app names. I’m hoping that Apple makes it possible to swipe between Home Screen styles the same way you can swipe between Lock Screens, and have them connected to Focus modes. That way, I could set up a duotone Tinted Home Screen for certain situations.
