Alphabetizing apps on an iPhone is super easy, but a little less practical than on Android, as it requires resetting one’s home screen, and will thus lose you your precious, customized folders.
Nevertheless, if you want to learn how to alphabetize apps on your iPhone, look no further. Simply follow our step-by-step instructions below.
For all other information or questions you may have, see our FAQ section at the end of this article.
Table of Contents
How to alphabetize apps on an iPhone
- On your iPhone, tap the ‘Settings’ app icon to open it
- Scroll through the settings options until you find ‘General’ and tap on this to open your iPhone’s general settings
- Scroll through your iPhone’s general settings until you find the ‘Reset’ settings
- Tap ‘Reset’ to take you to the reset settings
- Next, tap ‘Reset Home Screen Layout’
- If asked to enter your passcode or confirm your identity some other way, do so now
- Exit out of the Settings app and return to your Home Screen by pressing ‘Home’
- You will see that your iPhone apps have been successfully rearranged into alphabetical order, from A-Z, left-right
That’s all you need to know to alphabetize apps on iPhone. For anything else, including more information or further answers to your questions, please direct your attention to our FAQs below.
FAQs
Why would I want to alphabetize apps on iPhone?
Arranging your apps by their alphabetical order on iPhone (so as they appear A-Z, left-right in your apps folder) is simply a clever and effective means of making your iPhone easier and faster to navigate in a pinch.
Let’s say you’re looking for your pedometer app, for example (perhaps one which you don’t immediately know the icon badge for), then it can be a real hassle to have to scroll through page after page of the dozens and dozens of apps you’ve downloaded over the years looking for just this single one.
However, if you alphabetize your apps on iPhone, then to find the pedometer app (as in this example) all you’d need to do is quickly swipe down or along to the ‘P’ section and hey presto! You’ve found it.
There are many other different ways to sort apps and organize them on iPhone devices, too, but alphabetizing them has to be one of our favorite means. It’s just so intuitive, and instantly recognisable to all but a small minority.
Reasons why you may wish to alphabetize your apps on iPhone include: If you’re having trouble locating apps amid the mire of icons, badges, names and folders you’ve accumulated over the years. Similarly, you may wish to just to make your apps folder look neater and tidier, if you’re that way inclined. Sometimes you can also find that previously alphabetized apps fall out of order over time, so you may just wish to re-alphabetize them.
Whatever your reasons for wanting to alphabetize your apps on iPhone, the process is super simple. Just follow our step-by-step tutorial above.
What are the other ways you can sort apps on iPhone?
There are actually a number of other ways you can sort your apps on an iPhone which make your life that much easier, and your apps that much quicker to navigate. In addition to alphabetizing your apps, you can also arrange them by custom order, or in folders of your choosing.
Doing so may be preferable to you, depending on how you like to interact with your phone and your various apps. For example, simply alphabetizing your apps may be more of a hindrance than a help if you only ever really use a small handful of your downloaded apps.
In such a case, iPhone users may well determine that it’s faster and easier instead to arrange the apps they do use into folders, and push the rest of the apps to the proverbial ‘back’ of the home screen.
We typically find, however, that arranging your apps on your iPhone alphabetically is generally the easiest, most straightforward and instantly recognisable way to sort apps out and will make your life a whole lot easier.
Does alphabetizing apps on iPhone change their order on the home screen?
If you’ve ever worked with an Android phone, you’ll know that there’s the home screen – where all app shortcuts and widgets are displayed – as well as a separate ‘app screen’, where the full contingent of apps downloaded and installed onto the phone are displayed.
iPhone users will surely recognise that this is not the case for Apple smartphones. Instead, there is no separate app folder or app screen. Every app downloaded to and installed onto an iPhone is displayed directly on the home screen.
As such, any changes you make to the sorting of apps on an iPhone will immediately be reflected on the home screen.
In fact, you cannot technically simply ‘alphabetize’ the apps on your home screen, including the folders of apps you have constructed separately. Instead, as you’ll have seen by reading the tutorial provided in the body of the main article, you can only reset your home screen to default.
When you do so, it should be noted that all customized folders you have created will be deleted when you restore your homescreen to default, and any customized layouts will also be restored to default.
If you want to avoid this happening (i.e. if you want to keep your custom folders), then you will have to alphabetize by hand, by dragging and dropping each individual app shortcut into alphabetical place on your homescreen, including your folders.
What’s the best way to organize apps on Apple smartphones and tablets?
Alphabetizing apps on iPhones is a great, reliable and safe way to organize the content on your smartphone or tablet so as to be readily accessible at the drop of a hat. However, it’s not the only option open to you when looking to reorganize your phone.
In addition to (or instead of) alphabetizing your apps on iPhone, you can group several apps together at once into folders, customizable and personal to you. For example, you may wish to group apps by the frequency of their use in folders perhaps labeled ‘Every Day’, ‘Weekly’ or ‘Monthly’
Alternatively, you may wish to group iPhone apps in folders relating to their type: ‘Social Media’, ‘Streaming’, ‘Gaming’, ‘Music’ and so on. Or even by how you use them: ‘Play’, ‘Work’, ‘Messaging’ and so on.
At the end of the day, how you choose to group your apps into folders is entirely up to you, and is easy to do, too. Simply tap and hold the first app icon you wish to group with another, and then move it to hover over a second app icon with which you wish it to be grouped.
From here, you’ll see a folder form beneath your finger, containing both apps. Simply let go and you will ‘drop’ the first app into a newly created folder containing the second as well. You will then be automatically prompted to name the folder (if you’re not, tap and hold the folder and then tap ‘Rename’ from the pop-up menu). Give the folder a name and then tap away from it to close it.
Just remember that folders of apps will be deleted when you alphabetize your iPhone apps using the method described in the main article. The apps themselves will obviously not be deleted, but they will be removed from the folder and grouped alphabetically instead. To avoid this happening, you’ll have to manually alphabetize your home screen’s apps and folders by hand.
