How to organize hundreds of iPhone apps

“Each page has big gaps, how do I tighten it up” has 286 “me too” votes on Apple Support Communities. One person in a related thread has 453 apps; another built spreadsheets to plan their icons because, with the old iTunes, it would have taken 10 minutes.

Step 1: decide what deserves a spot

Go through your pages and ask of each app: did I open this in the last month? The ones you did not open do not need to be on a page at all: they stay installed, they still show up in search, and they wait in the App Library, which groups them into categories on its own.

To stop the problem growing, go to Settings > Home Screen & App Library (called Home Screen on older versions) and set Newly Downloaded Apps to App Library Only. New apps then stop landing on your last page.

To remove an app from a page without deleting it, touch and hold it, tap Remove App, then tap Remove from Home Screen.
To get a whole page of rarely used apps out of the way in one move, hide that page in the page editor. The apps go back to living in the App Library.

Step 2: close the gaps

Gaps build up because apps get deleted, pages get hidden, and new apps land at the end. On the phone, the free way is to work from the last page backward: carry stacks of apps (start dragging one, tap others with a second finger) onto earlier pages until each one is full. Every drop pushes apps along, so expect some back and forth.

Since iOS 18 you can also leave empty spaces on purpose. If you did, those spaces stay where you put them on the phone.

Step 3: plan it on a bigger screen

The spreadsheet approach works, but you then have to copy the plan back by hand. TidyGrid does the planning and the copying. It reads the home screen over a cable and shows every page side by side, with real icons, plus a list of the apps that are only in the App Library.

Use search to find an app among hundreds, and the Shelf to park apps while you decide where they go.
Select many apps at once with Command-click or a selection box, and drag them between pages, into folders, or to the App Library.
Click Arrange, by color or A to Z, to re-order every app and folder on your pages in one go. Gaps close, pages are added if needed and empty pages are dropped. The Dock stays as it is, and widgets stay at the top of their page.
Press Apply when the draft looks right. TidyGrid backs up the current layout, writes the new one, and checks the phone matches.

Who this works for

The App Library setting and the two-finger stack are built into iOS 14 and later.
TidyGrid needs a Mac with Apple silicon and a cable. Reading a layout is tested on iPadOS 15, iOS 16, iOS 17 and iOS 27.
Applying from TidyGrid is tested on iPadOS 15.3.1 and iOS 27.2. iOS 16, iOS 17, iOS 18 and iOS 26 are still in testing, and on those TidyGrid opens the layout read-only.

What it cannot do

TidyGrid cannot see empty spaces you left on purpose between icons, so Arrange and Apply do not keep them.
Arrange does not put the apps inside folders in order.
TidyGrid cannot delete apps for you or change the App Library's own categories.
TidyGrid cannot read hidden pages. Unhide them first if you want those apps included.

Questions

Is there a limit to how many apps fit on a page?

Yes, the grid is fixed by the iPhone model and cannot be changed. Folders are how you fit more on one page, and the App Library holds everything else.

Will moving apps to the App Library delete their data?

No. Removing an app from the home screen only takes away its icon from the page. The app and its data stay on the phone.

Does TidyGrid handle a phone with 400 apps?

It reads every page and every folder, and lists App Library-only apps separately, and it shows all pages at once however many there are. Search and the Shelf help you keep track on a large phone.

Can I go back if the new layout is worse?

Yes. Before Apply, use undo. After Apply, TidyGrid keeps the last 10 backups for each device and can restore any of them on a version where applying is tested.