Determine every app icon on your iPhone and iPad yourself

Choose the app icon yourself

Are you not a fan of one or more app icons on your iPhone or iPad? Then you can choose them yourself (with a little work). You can customize one of your app icons, but if you want to get serious about it, you can also transform your entire home screen. This way you can implement a theme on your home screen, a bit like Android. We show you step by step how to customize app icons on the iPhone and iPad and give you some other tips for personalizing the home screen of your iPhone and iPad.

• App settings
• Inspiration
• Roadmap
• Pros and cons
• More personalization

Adjust the app icon via app settings

First of all, it is good to know that a number of apps already offer different app icons. You can then choose a different icon via the settings of an app. This is by far the easiest way, although it does depend on whether an app offers this.

As an example we give the Flighty app, of which you can customize the app icon:

1. Open the Flighty app (or any other app).
2. Go to the Settings or Settings.
3. Choose the App Icon option (or something similar).
4. Choose a different icon.

The advantage of this method is that the app icon is customized everywhere: from the home screen to the app switcher to the Settings app. The disadvantage is that with this method you cannot choose an icon yourself and are dependent on the developer’s choice.

Do you want complete freedom? Then there is another method.

Inspiration for custom app icons

First of all, you might be looking for some inspiration for a set of new app icons. You can find many examples of self-designed home screens on Reddit and Pinterest.

To download ready-made icons you can look here:

• 360° Noir (free)
• Icons8.com (free)
• 3DIcons (paid)
• Aesthete (paid)
• Fluo (paid)

As an example, we will create this icon for the Watch app, found in the 360° Noir set:

Step-by-step plan for customizing app icons on the iPhone

To customize an icon you need the Assignments app. This is installed on your iPhone by default, but you can find it in the App Store if you’ve uninstalled it. With this app you set up a kind of detour to another app. The detour then has an icon that you can determine yourself.

It’s a lot of work to customize an entire home screen. That’s why you can let Launch Center Pro do most of the work for you. This does require an annual subscription.

• Assignments (free)
• Launch Center Pro (paid)

Use Assignments app (free)

If you don’t want to pay for a personalized home screen, you can do it with the Assignments app. That is more work, but it ultimately has the same result.

First of all you need to download the icon to set:

1. Search for the icon you want to set, for example via the suggestions above.
2. Download the complete set at once or save the icons individually. You do this by holding it down.
3. Tap Add to Photos.

Then follow these steps again for each icon:

1. Open the Assignments app and tap the plus sign at the top right.
2. Now tap Add task and tap Open app.
3. Tap the blue word ‘app’ and choose, for example, the Watch app. This may also be another app.

4. Now tap the share menu at the bottom of the screen and choose Add to Home Screen.
5. Tap the icon assigned by default. There is a blue border around this to indicate that you can tap it.
6. Tap Choose Photo and select the previously downloaded icon image. You can crop the image a bit and center it properly.

7. Enter the name you want to see on the home screen.
8. Satisfied? Tap Add at the top right, then tap Done.
9. Place the icon in a prominent place on your home screen.

In our example, we used a simple image of a watch to symbolize the Watch app. Of course you can use any icon. If you don’t like the text under an icon, you can even leave the text blank.

After setting your icons, don’t forget to hide the ‘old’ original icon from your home screen. To do this, press and hold that icon, tap Delete App, then tap Hide from Home Screen. This will then move to your App Library.

Using Launch Center Pro (paid)

Don’t feel like doing a lot of work, but do you want to completely customize your home screen? Launch Center Pro can help you with that. The app is free to download, but to use this specific feature you have to pay a few euros. Are you willing to do that? Then watch the video below for an explanation:

After setting your icons, don’t forget to hide the ‘old’ original icon from your home screen. To do this, press and hold your finger on that icon and tap Remove app and then tap Hide from home screen.

Advantages and disadvantages of custom app icons

The advantage of customizing app icons is of course the personal look it gives to your home screen. It doesn’t matter what you like: it can all be set as an app icon. This way you can match your home screen with your case or with a wallpaper. If you are a fan of a football team, brand or other company, you can make everything in that style.

The disadvantage, however, is that you have to adjust everything per app. That’s not much of a problem for one icon, but if you have dozens of apps that all have to have the same style, it will take some time. Especially if you also have to design those icons. Fortunately, you can find lots of inspiration and images to use on the internet.

A second disadvantage is that the Quick Actions are not available. These are options that you can use if you long press an app icon. For example, consider quickly transferring money with your banking app.

A third disadvantage is that you no longer receive badges on the apps. From now on, if you use your custom app icon to open your apps, you will not see a red counter indicating how many missed notifications you have. For example, consider a new message in WhatsApp. So keep that in mind.

More personalization with widgets and backgrounds

If you want to go much further, you can also create your own widgets and set wallpapers. You can fill your home screen with a combination of your own app icons and widgets. Widgetsmith is a popular app for creating widgets, for example with an agenda or your own photo. With Widgetsmith 2 you can set many more colors, themes and more for your widgets. Some widgets are free, but there are also paid versions.

You can read more about setting up widgets in our separate tip. So you always need Widgetsmith to set the personalized widgets.

Finally, a beautiful background can also help with personalization. For example, you can use the Vellum app for this, which offers a large selection of backgrounds to which you can even add a blur effect.

Do you want to take all your Apple devices into the custom world? Then you can also customize app icons on the Mac. This has been possible for years and is quite simple. Read our tip to see how it works.