How to Add Empty Spaces to Your iPhone Home Screen Without Jailbreaking

BY Killian Bell

Published 26 May 2016

iPhone home screen with blank space

Don’t you wish you could put your iPhone’s home screen icons anywhere — just like you can on Android? Well, now it’s possible, and you don’t need to jailbreak your device or install third-party tweaks. Here’s what to do.

This is made possible using a neat trick which creates home screen icons that blend seamlessly into your iPhone’s wallpaper. So, technically, you’re not creating free space, but you are adding icons that are almost invisible when placed in the correct spot on your home screen.

To make this possible, we’re going to use an online tool dubbed iEmpty. Here are the steps you need to follow:

  1. Tap and hold an icon on your home screen to make your icons wiggle, then swipe to the left until you get to a blank page
  2. Take a screenshot of this page
  3. Visit iempty.tooliphone.net in Safari on your iPhone
  4. Tap “Customize,” then tap “CUSTOM Mode”
  5. Tap “Add,” then tap the “Choose File” button
  6. Tap “Photo Library,” then select the screenshot you just created
  7. Tap “Upload Photo”
  8. You will now be greeted by a home screen with a bunch of icons; you need to tap the positions that you want to turn invisible on your home screen. For instance, if you want to create space in the top left corner, tap “1 x 1.” For bottom right, choose “6 x 4.”
  9. Once you’ve selected a position, you will be presented with a custom icon. Now tap the Share button, then select “Add to Home Screen”
  10. Tap “Add” without making any changes
  11. Repeat this process for all the blank icons you require
  12. Now return to your home screen and move the new icons into the correct positions on the home screen, and they will appear invisible, creating what looks like a blank space

Check out the video below from iDownloadBlog for a walkthrough, which shows just how neat this trick is.

Because this trick uses specially-created icons, rather than just bugs in iOS, nothing will change when you restart your iPhone; the blank spaces you’ve created will remain, and your home screen will look exactly the same as it did before your iPhone was switched off.

[Via iDownloadBlog]