How to make a good-looking custom Home Screen in iOS 18

You’ve probably seen some of the beautiful custom iPhone Home Screens on social media after the iOS 18 developer beta launch. Some people go to great lengths to creatively customize their iOS 18 Home Screen layout, icons and widgets.

It makes sense. After all, you open your phone and look at your Home Screen dozens (or even hundreds) of times every single day. A custom Home Screen that matches your style can bring a little spark of joy to your daily life every time you whip out your iPhone. And iOS 18 makes Home Screen customization easier than ever.

Keep reading (or watch our video) for a quick introduction into the world of custom Home Screens. You’ll find out about new features coming in iOS 18, how to go above and beyond using Shortcuts, and how you can top off your iPhone aesthetic with widgets. I’ve scoured the internet (Reddit, mostly) to find the finest examples.

Customize iOS 18 Home Screen layout, icons and widgets

1. On iOS 18, use a dark background

iOS 18 — which is available now as a developer beta, if you’re so daring — opens up loads of customization options. You can set your Home Screen to use Dark icons or Tinted icons with any color you want. However, bear in mind that the Tinted icons still use a Dark color scheme. That means you’ll achieve the best results if you employ a moody, dark iPhone wallpaper with a complementary accent color for the icons.

If you’re already running iOS 18, just tap and hold on your Home Screen to enter jiggle mode. Then tap Edit in the upper left, then tap Customize. If you select Tinted, you can find a color using the sliders, or you can tap the eyedropper icon in the upper right of the panel to select a color based on your iPhone’s wallpaper. You also can tap the Sun icon in the upper left to darken your wallpaper a little more.

If you want a good, unobstructed view of your wallpaper, in iOS 18 you can move app icons and folders to the bottom of your iPhone screen for the first time. Apple really opens up your options for iPhone customization in iOS 18.

2. Go all-in on fully custom icons

Apple’s options for iPhone Home Screen customization in iOS 18 are easy to set up, but somewhat limited. For one, the Dark and Tinted icons don’t look great with a light theme. If you want any pastel colors, like light pink, lavender or aqua blue, you’ll need to make your own custom app icons.

Ever since custom Home Screens went viral in 2020, custom icon packs for iPhone have been easy to find. You can locate custom icon packs online from websites like Icons8. Click on a collection, then search for an icon inside that collection (like YouTube, Instagram, Mail, etc.) and download the images. You should end up with a series of icons in your photo library.

Custom icons don’t need to be all about changing your iPhone’s color scheme. The icon set above looks just as colorful as the stock icons, but it changes the aesthetic gentle colors and softer shadows.

To swap out your apps’ old icons for the new ones, you’ll need to set up a bunch of Shortcuts. Open the Shortcuts app, tap + in the upper-right corner, then tap Open App. Tap App, then select the app you want to add. That’s all the Shortcut needs to do. Hit the Share button in the bottom toolbar and select Add to Home Screen.

Here’s the important part: Type in the name of the app, select the icon on the left, and tap Choose Photo. Then, select the custom icon you added to your photo library. Tap Add to put it on your Home Screen. (Remove the stock icon by tapping and holding on the app, tapping Remove App, then tapping Remove from Home Screen.) It can be a tedious process if you have a lot of icons, but the results speak for themselves.

There is one important thing to note about this kind of setup. Whereas the iOS 18 icon customization feature affects icons everywhere on your iPhone, including the App Library, adding these Shortcuts only affects icons on your Home Screen. That’s because you’re not really changing the icons themselves; you’re making new ones for your Home Screen.

This iPhone customization hack also comes with two somewhat annoying side effects. First of all, the custom icon won’t show notification badges. Secondly, when you tap on the icon, you’ll see a banner at the top of the screen reminding you that you just ran a Shortcut. This cannot be disabled, even in iOS 18.

Personally, I use custom icons in a more subtle way. I use the stock iOS 18 dark mode, because I like the color differentiation. But for the three third-party apps on my Home Screen — Snapchat, Mona and NetNewsWire — I made my own dark mode icons that match Apple’s theme.

3. Enhance the look of your iPhone Home Screen with custom widgets

A lot of the widgets that come built-in are functional and utilitarian, not necessarily beautiful. If you use the Tinted app icons, your widgets will adopt the same color scheme, but the results still may not look ideal. Using an app like the viral sensation Widgetsmith, you can add beautiful widgets that enhance your aesthetic. In the image below, you can see all the options are combined for a truly unique and personalized look. The sky is the limit.

With Widgetsmith, you can add calendar widgets, weather widgets, countdown widgets or simple photos that do nothing but look gorgeous. The options for custom colors and fonts are guaranteed to match your personal style.

“With new tools coming in iOS 18, people will be able to more easily create their own unique aesthetic,” said Stephen Hackett, the managing director for Widgetsmith, in an email to Cult of Mac.

The people behind Widgetsmith update the app very regularly. The app adopts all the latest iOS features, like widget interactivity, with fresh styles every few months to inspire you. Hackett also told me that this year, when users update to iOS 18, they will be able to “customize Control Center with third-party widgets” made using the app, too.

Price: $1.99 per month or $19.99 per year
Download from: App Store

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