How To Rearrange Icons On Your Apple TV

BY Jason

Published 6 Oct 2012

Apple launched the 3rd generation Apple TV with an all-new icon-centric interface in March and also released Apple TV Update 5.0 that brought the icon-centric interface to the 2nd generation Apple TV. Unfortunately, at that time it wasn’t possible to change the position of the Apple TV home screen icons.

The good news is that it is finally possible to change the position of the icons on your Apple TV’s Home screen in Apple TV Update 5.1 (or iOS 6) that was released in September.

It’s still not possible to change the position of the first row of icons (Movies, TV Shows, Music, Computers, Settings), but you can change the position of the icons in the second row as follows:

Note: Ensure that your Apple TV is running Apple TV Software 5.1 (5201). You can find it by navigating to Settings -> General -> About using the remote on your Apple TV.

  • Select the icon you want to move
  • Press and hold the Select button on the Apple TV remote until the icon begins to jiggle
  • Use the arrow keys on the Apple TV remote to move the icon to a new position
  • Press Select button again on the remote again to save the new position
You can also change rearrange the icons on Apple TV’s Home screen with your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch using the Remote app  (App Store link). Here’s how:
  • Launch the Remote app
  • Tap on the Control tab at the bottom
  • Use the gesture area to select the icon you want to move
  • Tap on the Options button at bottom left corner
  • The icon begins to jiggle, now swipe left, right, up or down in the gesture area to move the icon to a new position
  • Tap on the gesture area to save the new position

That’s it, you can follow these steps for other icons you would like to move.