Over time, as you install more apps, your Android phone starts to become cluttered. There are a few things you can do to better organize installed apps on your phone and make it easier for yourself to find what you’re looking for.
The exact steps to follow in each method vary by the phone model you use. The following guide gives you a general idea of where various options are located.
1 Categorize Your Apps in Folders
Android allows you to create folders and place your apps in them. This helps you categorize your apps and find relevant apps at once. A good example of this feature is putting all your social media apps, like Facebook and Instagram, in a single app folder.
To create such a folder, access your home screen. Tap and hold on to the first app you want to categorize, then drag this app onto another relevant app. Android will create a folder and put both your apps in it.
You can pick apps from your phone’s app drawer as well to make app folders.
To add more apps to the folder, drag the apps and drop them into the folder. Android will name the folder depending on the apps you’ve added to it. To rename it, open the folder, tap the current name, and type a new name.
To remove an app from the folder, access the folder, tap and hold on the app to remove it, and drop the app outside of the folder. Note that doing this only removes the app from the folder; the app isn’t deleted.
2 Pin Apps to the Dock
Android has the app dock at the bottom of the screen, allowing you to launch your favorite apps from any home screen. You can pin custom apps to this dock to make accessing those apps easier.
To do that, find the app to pin in the app drawer or home screen. Drag the app and drop it onto the dock. The app will then sit on the dock.
You can have a limited number of apps pinned to the dock. If the dock is full, remove an existing app from there by tapping and holding on the app and dropping it outside of the dock.
3 Sort Apps in the App Drawer
You can sort apps using various filters in your Android phone’s app drawer. This allows you to see the apps important to you at the top of the drawer.
To do that, access your phone’s app drawer. From the top-right corner, select “Manage.” In the open menu, choose “Sort.” You’ll see a “Sort Apps By” panel. Here, you can choose to sort your apps by their name, install time, and most used.
Once you’ve picked an option, Android will display your apps accordingly in the app drawer. At any time, you can go back to the default sorting method by choosing that option in the panel.
4 Change the Home Screen Grid Layout
You can actually customize the home screen grid layout to include more or fewer apps. This lets you have the exact number of apps you want on your home screens.
To make that change, tap and hold on an empty space on your home screen and choose “Layout” from the bottom bar. Choose the layout you’d like to have. The options include 3 x 6, 4 x 5, 4 x 6, 5 x 5, and 5 x 6.
Tap “Apply” after choosing a new layout to bring the change into effect.
Many apps offer widgets that you can place on your phone’s home screen and utilize those apps’ features without opening them. The most common example is the clock widget that you get from the Clock app. You can see the current time using that widget without opening the Clock app.
To see and add the available widgets to your home screen, tap and hold on a blank space on your home screen and choose “Widgets” from the bottom bar. You’ll see all the available widgets. To add a widget to your home screen, tap and hold on it and drop it onto your home screen.
Later, to remove a widget from your home screen, tap and hold on to the widget and choose “Remove.”
6 Remove Unwanted Apps From the Home Screen
If your home screen is cluttered and full of apps, remove unwanted apps from there. This way, you can keep your apps but not have them appear on the home screen.
To do that, find the app to remove it from your home screen. Tap and hold on to the app and choose “Remove.” In the open prompt, select “Remove.”
Follow the above steps to remove each unwanted app from your phone’s home screen. In the future, to add an app back to the home screen, drag the app from the app drawer and drop it onto the appropriate home screen.
7 Prevent Android From Adding New Apps to the Home Screen
On many phones, Android automatically adds the new apps you install to the home screen. This makes accessing those apps easier, but if you don’t want that, you can turn off the feature.
Tap and hold on an empty area on your home screen and choose “More” from the bottom bar. On the following page, turn off the “Add Apps to Home Screen” option.
And you’re done.
8 Lock the Home Screen Layout
To prevent accidental changes to your home screen layout, you can lock the current layout. This prevents any changes from being made to your home screen.
To do that, tap and hold on an empty space on your home screen and choose “More” from the bottom bar. On the screen that opens, turn on the “Lock Home Screen Layout” option.
That’s all.
And that’s how you arrange and organize applications on your Android device. This makes finding apps easier and boosts your productivity. You can play around with other options available in your phone’s customization settings to make your phone truly yours. Have fun!
