The App Library is a great tool for browsing through all the apps on your iPhone, especially since it includes all the home screen bookmarks you’ve made for websites and shortcuts. But that’s way beyond your final home screen page. If you have a lot of visible pages on your Home screen, it will take a lot of scrolling to open the App Library. Luckily, there is a way to access it faster.
Options we need to open the App Library but are missing
Ideally, Apple would provide an option to display an app icon for the app library itself, and we could put it in the dock for quick access from any home screen page. Apple already provides the iPad with a “Show App Library in Dock”toggle to do just that, so why isn’t it on the iPhone?
There isn’t even a known URL scheme assigned to the app library that would allow us to make a bookmark icon that looks exactly like the app icon for the home screen. The Apple TV Remote used to only be accessible from the Control Center until iOS 16.0, but now it can act like a real app with a new URL scheme. So why can’t we do the same for the App Library on the iPhone?
It is not easy for users using accessibility settings to interact with their devices to find and open the App Library. If you’re having difficulty swiping the screen, you’re out of luck. There is no Back Tap option, AssistiveTouch, or accessibility shortcut in the App Library, and asking Siri to open the App Library will just frustrate you. When will we get them, Apple?
Your Only Options to Quickly Open App Library on iPhone
As far as I know, there are only four options for faster access to the App Library on your iPhone. They’re no better than some of the non-existent methods mentioned above, but they’ll do for now. Options 1 and 2 are not great as they involve reconfiguring your home screen, so options 3 and 4 might be the best way to go.
Option 1: Limit the number of homepages
You can limit the number of Home screen pages so that it doesn’t take long to navigate to the App Library. It’s not ideal if you like having all your apps on your home screen pages. But if you only have two home screen pages active, it’s two small swipes to the left across the screen to open the App Library.
Option 2: Hide your homepages
You can also hide the home screen pages until you need them, which has the same effect as option 1 above. It’s also not ideal if you frequently access apps on hidden home screen pages. But if you like the App Library, you can make it one swipe to the left and then display the home screen pages when you want or want to.
Option 3. Use a two-swipe gesture
In iOS 16.0 and later, simply touch and drag the Search button above the dock to the right until you reach the last home screen page. Then release and swipe left to open the App Library.
If you hide the Search button in iOS 16.0 and later, or haven’t updated to iOS 16 yet, you’ll instead see dots above the dock pointing to all the pages on your home screen. Touch and drag the highlighted dot to the right until it stops, then swipe left on the last page of the home screen to open the App Library. It’s actually a little faster than swiping on the “Search”button.
Option 4: use voice control without swipes
Siri may not be able to open the App Library for you, but the voice control accessibility feature can. It may not be faster than the swipe options above, but it’s useful if you don’t want to swipe.
You have several options for opening and closing voice control.
- Go to Settings -> Accessibility -> Voice Control, then turn Voice Control on or off. However, it’s just more of a read.
- Add it to your Accessibility Shortcut (Settings -> Accessibility -> Accessibility Shortcut) so it’s just a triple click of the Home button or Side button. If the shortcut has multiple options assigned, tap Voice Control from the selection menu.
- Assign it to the Back Tap gesture (Settings -> Accessibility -> Touch -> Back Tap). Then double or triple tap the Apple logo on the back of your iPhone.
- Assign it to the AssistiveTouch gesture (Settings -> Accessibility -> Touch -> AssistiveTouch). Turn this feature on, then double or triple-tap or press and hold the AssistiveTouch icon on the screen.
- Ask Siri. This is perhaps the fastest option. Use phrases such as “Turn on/off voice control”, “Turn on/off voice control”, or “Start/stop voice control”, just to name a few.
- When voice control is enabled, it’s actually faster to turn it off by saying “Turn off voice control”or “Turn off voice control”. Obviously, voice control cannot turn on by itself.
Now that you know how to enable and disable voice control, let’s use it to open the Application Library. Turn it on, then say one of the following phrases. If that doesn’t work, go to Settings -> Accessibility -> Voice Control -> Customize Commands -> Basic Navigation -> Open App Library, then turn on the Enabled switch.
Can we see better options? May be…
That’s enough for now (unless you want to jailbreak your iPhone). The fastest swipe isn’t great, as you can unintentionally hold the screen for too long, which will open the home screen editor. Maybe one day Apple will add at least one of the previously mentioned offerings, but who knows when.