How to Add Custom Icons and Widgets to Your iPhone Home Screen

Adding custom icons and tiles of various shapes and sizes for applications, widgets, and folders anywhere on your home screens is one of the finest ways to personalize your iPhone. You may also use own pictures and designs in place of conventional icons. This functionality has been present since iOS 14, and in the future iOS 16, you'll be able to adjust your personalized home screen based on your Focus mode, as well as customize the lock screen.

One Twitter user used MS Paint(Opens in a new window) to create amusingly amateur-looking icons as an illustration of how far you can go with icon customisation. The Shortcuts app is the key here. Continue reading to learn how to customize your iOS home screens with custom icons and widgets.

How to Create Custom Icons for Your iPhone

Open the Shortcuts app on your iPhone and press the plus symbol (+) in the upper right corner of the screen to access the New Shortcut page.

Choose Add Action.

Select the Scripting icon. (If you click on Apps, you'll see just activities made by the app developer, such as initiating a tweet, rather than the program itself.)

Select Open App, then the three-dot menu icon in the upper right corner to see Details.

Select Add to Home Screen. Tap the bottom, smaller icon to the right of your new shortcut's name. Tap the circled X to change it; the default name is New Shortcut.

Here comes the meat of the tip: To replace the icon, use the tiny Edit Icon menu to select a file, a photo from your camera roll, or take an image with the iPhone's camera.

Tap Add to Home Screen and then, under Home Screen Name and Icon, pick the icon next to your shortcut.

Select File, Photo, or Take Photo from the pop-up window that displays. You can crop a picture to change what appears, but it doesn't have to be square or a set size.

Tap Add > Done.

You can see my new Acrobat and AccuWeather icons. I made the faux Acrobat icon with Paint 3D on Windows 10.

While creating unique icons is enjoyable, there are some disadvantages. For example, when you press the custom icon to start the app, you are not sent immediately to the app. Instead, the action launches the Shortcuts app, which then directs you to the desired app.