this functionality is available for a while - swipe down with one finger when the app library is open.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
App Library is useless
- Thread starter -BigMac-
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
This is the kind of thing that makes the real world something to avoid at all costs.
🤭
Come to the Dark Side. Try adding a few widgets. Soon you’ll be one of us. 🤪
Mate I agree with you.
There should be a toggle for the widget page, and the app library. Give us some choice.
They dont FORCE dark mode on us.. why force app library and widget screen
And one to block swiping to open the camera from the lock-screen.
Not on my phone. I have my primary home page, largely empty, with four apps and one widget, I have a second home page with some important/frequently used apps. That's it. Easily 90% of my apps are not represented on my home pages at all.
Not exactly.
It dynamically organizes all your apps into fixed categories. The swipe-down search is great, and is what I use much of the time ... however, there are times when I forget what apps I have, or what the specific name of an app is, etc, and having the ability to scroll through the categories to remind myself of these things is helpful on occasion and not something that is replicated in the swipe-down search.
Having the App Library gives users have the ability to remove apps from their home screens (e.g., like I do, to keep things looking clean and tidy), if there were no App Library, we would all be relegated to having page after page after page of apps and folders and yuck.
The App Library provides some really nice clean-up utility for users and provides a place users can go, at any time, to find any app they have on their device whether or not it is present on any of the home screens.
And, since it's at the end of all your home screens, it's entirely out of the way. You have to explicitly choose to swipe over to it. My wife doesn't know it's there. Its existence is not onerous.
Most of my apps are only shown once (in the App Library). If you keep all of your apps on your home screens, the App Library is still entirely out of the way, but always there if you want to use it to see what apps you have in specific categories.
Ignore it if you don't ever want to use it.
No one at Apple certainly. 🤣
On 18.5 I had a Productivity folder and a Finance folder.
This continued on iOS 26 beta.
I went back to iOS 18.6 with a fresh install last night and I now have a folder called "Productivity and Finance" with 29 items in it. Why? This should definitely be split back into two folders, but I am given zero control.
Last edited:
Build a shortcut?
Shortcut to open App Library from icon on Homescreen
Hi xurc. Thank you for the feedback. I was hjoping for a solution 🙂 Maybe @RosemaryOrchard has a solution?
talk.automators.fm
There are no shortcut actions which open the App Library. Not sure how your link helps - what am I missing?
You can’t.
What you could do is a shortcut for open app->ask each time. Will give you an alphabetical list of all your apps, but no search.
Last edited:
You can just put your finger on the search or page .... icon at the bottom of the screen and drag to the right and then swipe right. you don't have to swipe past each page individually.