7 Creative Strategies to Organize Your Mobile Apps
Struggling to locate your Notes app on your phone without using Spotlight search? You might want to consider organizing your iPhone for easy access. With thousands of apps at our fingertips, they can quickly overcrowd our screens. Apps are designed to improve our lives and make us more efficient, but trying to find them in a mishmash collection of colorful icons can be time-consuming. Solve this problem by taking 15 minutes to clean out the jumble of app clutter and find a homescreen organizational structure that works for you. After all, no one wants to be an app hoarder.
Here are seven creative ways to arrange your smartphone apps.
- Verb-based Folders
For some people, default category names such as "Productivity," "Reference," and "Utilities" are too vague. Instead, take a second to think about what you use your phone for. Do you watch videos on YouTube? Listen to music? Read the news? Labeling folders with verbs such as "watch," "play," and "learn" can help you jump to the app you're looking for infinitely faster.
- Color Coding
Color coding isn't just for notes, emails, and closets. An app icon's visual elements are specifically designed to be easily identified and memorable. Your mind associates colors much quicker than black and white name labels, and colors can help you navigate your phone faster. The end result may be a smartphone with a rainbow color scheme, but you'll see that color filing in your app organization may make your life run a little more smoothly.
- Alphabetical Order
If you find comfort in an A-to-Z world, this method may be for you. Instead of manually alphabetizing your apps, here's an easier way to sort them on the iPhone:
- Launch the Settings app.
- Tap "General."
- Scroll down and tap "Transfer or Reset iPhone."
- Tap "Reset Home Screen Layout."
The icons that came with your Apple phone will be placed into their default locations, and your other apps will be sorted alphabetically.
- How You Hold Your Phone
Think about how you hold your phone. If it's easier for you to open an app on the perimeter of your phone, then it may be best to place your frequently used apps strategically around the phone's edges. However, if you like to file away apps in folders, this may not be the ideal method for you.
- Themed Rows
If you aren't a fan of using folders, you can use the themed row method to place related apps together. Assign a specific genre or theme to each row, like "day planning." By grouping similar apps, you can easily identify which row to navigate toward.
- Frequency of App Usage
Organize apps on different home screen pages in order of how often you use them. To keep your iPhone clean and easily accessible, the goal is to have no more than three home screens. Place the apps you use most on the first page of the home screen. This is also a great section to include apps you need to get to quickly, like your camera.
- Emoji Folders
You don't have to label your app folders with just text. Instead, dazzle up your homescreen folders with emoji-themed labels. For example, use the music note symbol for your music apps like Spotify and Pandora.
UPDATE: Oct. 16, 2023, 4:13 p.m. AEDT Additional reporting by Sasha Lekach. Originally published in 2014, then updated in 2018 and 2023.
