What are Hidden Apps on iPhone?
Apple added a feature starting with iOS 18 that lets users hide apps from the Home Screen. This makes things more private and organized. When you hide an app, it leaves the Home Screen and goes to a Hidden folder in the App Library.
📌 One more helpful detail: Hiding an app is different on each device, and it doesn't automatically sync as "hidden" on all of your Apple devices.
How to find hidden apps on iPhone
To find the Hidden apps folder on your iPhone, swipe left through all your Home Screen pages until you reach the App Library. At the bottom of the App Library, you’ll see the "Hidden" folder. Tap on it to view your hidden apps.
You need to use Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode to get into this folder — all for extra security. This keeps your hidden apps private, and only you can see them.
⚠️ Note: You can't find hidden apps with Spotlight Search or in the regular app list in Settings. You can't see these apps anywhere else on your device, and you have to authentify to see them, open them, or even use Siri with them.
If you can't find the Hidden folder
If you don't see the Hidden folder when you swipe to the App Library, one of these things might be true:
- You haven't hidden any apps yet. The folder might only show up when there are apps inside.
- The app isn't hidden; it's just not on your Home Screen. For example, it might only be in the App Library. In that case, Apple says to look at your Home Screen and the App Library.
- Screen Time or another device setting (common on family devices) may limit the app.
Reclaim iPhone Storage Space with Clean Email
Every bit of space counts when your iPhone's storage is almost full. Hidden apps and big files are often to blame, but messy email inboxes can also make things worse. Clean Email can help you get rid of junk email and free up space on your device with ease.
Cleaning Suggestions: This tool finds groups of emails you might not need, like old notifications, unread messages, or attachments that are too big. You can delete them all at once with a few taps, making room for the things that really matter on your iPhone.
Unsubscriber: It doesn't take long for subscriptions to newsletters and promotional emails to add up. Clean Email's Unsubscriber tool lets you stop new emails from piling up in your inbox and get rid of old ones, freeing up space and giving you peace of mind.
💡 Curious about what else Clean Email can do? Read on to learn more!
How to Delete Apps on Your iPhone That Are Hidden
There are many ways to declutter your iPhone, such as archiving emails for better organization or removing duplicate photos and videos. One great way to declutter is to delete hidden apps. Here's how to do it:
Through the App Library
The easiest way to delete hidden apps on your iPhone is through the App Library.
Step 1: Open your Home Screen and swipe left until you reach the far-right screen. You’ll know you’re on the correct page when you see the App Library bar at the top and app categories displayed in boxes below.
Step 2: Scroll to the bottom of the App Library and tap on the Hidden folder.
Step 3: Use Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode to unlock the folder and access its contents.
Step 4: Browse through the list of apps to find the one you want to remove.
Step 5: Long-press anywhere on the screen to make the apps wiggle, then tap the X on the app you want to delete.
📌 Alternatively, press and hold the app icon, then select Delete App from the menu that appears.
Step 6: Authenticate with Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode to proceed with deleting the app.
Step 7: Tap Delete again to confirm.
📌 If you have more hidden apps to delete, repeat Steps 5–7 for each one.
Through the iPhone or iPad Settings
Deleting hidden apps through Settings is a good way to remove multiple applications systematically. To delete apps on your iPad that are hidden, you can do so like you would on an iPhone:
Step 1: Open Settings on your device.
Step 2: Tap General.
Step 3: Select iPhone Storage (or iPad Storage on an iPad).
Step 4: Scroll to the bottom of the page and tap Hidden Apps. You’ll be prompted to authenticate using Face ID, Touch ID, or your password.
Step 5: Locate the app you want to delete and tap to view its details.
Step 6: Tap Delete App.
Step 7: Confirm deletion by tapping Delete App again.
📌 Repeat the steps for any other hidden apps you’d like to remove.
Declutter Your Email While Cleaning Your iPhone
Cleaning out your email inbox is just as important as deleting hidden apps to make your iPhone run as well as it can. When your email account is full, important messages can get lost among newsletters, ads, and other messages that aren't important. This also slows down your phone if its email storage is almost full.
Setting up effective email filters on your iPhone is another part of email decluttering. This makes sure that important messages are easy to find and read. Clean Email is an app that helps you manage your email and keep your inbox organized while still having a good email experience.
Benefits of Using Clean Email iOS App
Wide functionality on iOS
Clean Email's iOS app offers the same comprehensive features as its web version. You can declutter your iPhone's inboxes without needing your desktop or laptop, so you can clean up anywhere.
Unsubscriber
The Unsubscriber tool makes it easy to get off of mailing lists you don't want to be on. You can use it to unsubscribe from emails on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. It makes sure that your inbox is no longer full of marketing emails and newsletters.
Clean Email also helps block senders who don't respond to your unsubscribe requests from sending you more messages in the future. You can also choose to delete messages that these senders have already sent you.
You don't have to look through your inbox for certain emails because all of the emails from the same sender are grouped together to make managing your subscriptions easier.
There is a Pause option that lets you pause a subscription instead of canceling it completely. This gives you more freedom.
Auto-Clean
Auto Clean is a great feature that lets you automatically deal with unwanted emails in the way that you want. You can use this tool to make your own rules for filtering, deleting, archiving, or organizing emails that meet certain criteria, like emails that are more than a certain number of days old or emails with big attachments.
Smart Folders
Clean Email automatically groups emails by type to make decluttering a breeze. These folders have a dedicated section on the sidebar menu. Smart Folders vary from Automated messages to Productivity tools, allowing you to clean up irrelevant promotions and newsletters in just seconds.
Clean Email automatically sorts emails by type, so it's easy to get rid of the ones you don't need. On the sidebar menu, there is a special section for these folders. Smart Folders can be anything from Automated Messages to Productivity Tools. They let you get rid of useless newsletters and promotions in just a few seconds.
Large Mail folder
Emails with large attachments can fill up your iPhone's storage space quickly. Clean Email makes it easy for you to find and delete these big emails all at once, freeing up a lot of space in your mailbox and on your device.
Bulk email deletion
Clean Email iOS app lets you bulk delete in one go. Not only can you delete thousands of emails in a snap, but you can also archive, label, or move them, saving you valuable time and storage space.
The Clean Email iOS app lets you delete a lot of emails at once. You can delete thousands of emails in a flash, and you can also archive, label, or move them, which saves you time and space.
Why Deleting Hidden Apps Is Important for Decluttering Your iPhone
Your iPhone may slow down or have problems when it gets too cluttered. If you know how to delete hidden apps on your iPhone, you can make it work better.
You can find yourself in a situations when you might accidentally hide apps in the App Library, and then you'll probably forget about them. But just because you can't see them doesn't mean they don't take up space. These hidden apps build up over time and slow down your phone.
Choosing to delete apps that are hidden has many benefits, such as:
- Making your phone faster and more responsive so you can do things like deleting emails on your iPhone without any problems.
- Making room for new files, photos, videos, and other important apps by clearing out space.
- Accessing the apps you usually use without any lag, which makes for the best user experience.
Most of the time, these hidden apps are not important to you or you have only used them once. Your device will work better if you delete them.
💡 Note: Read more on how to optimize storage on iPhone and manage photos, apps, and files effectively.
Wrap Up
To keep your iPhone or iPad in good shape, it's important to know how to delete hidden apps on your iOS devices. Cleaning up your iPhone apps not only gives you more space, but it also makes your phone faster and more responsive. Clean Email can help your phone work better by cleaning out its inbox. It has great features like Unsubscriber, Auto Clean, and Smart Folders. With this winning combination, you'll be able to use your iPhone for a long time.
