How to change app icons on your iPhone with iOS 14

Create an aesthetic look on your iPhone home screen by adding custom app icons

Things to note before you jump into the process:

Here is the look that we are going to achieve in this tutorial:

When you choose a set of icons, you need to save them to your Photos app. To save an icon from Iconfinder, click on the icon to open it in its own page. Then tap and hold on the image. When the menu pops up, click “Add to Photos”.

Repeat the process with the remaining icons that you want to customize.

When you collect icons in your Photos app, they are saved with transparent background. To make them appear nicely on, for example, white background, you’ll need to do some quick editing.

You can also choose to skip this step and place the icon on one of the default background colors, but the choice is quite limited:

When you open Over, click on the “+” icon to start a new project. Then choose a white background and square (1:1) format.

The next step is placing your icon on the canvas. Click “Image” in the bottom left corner and then select the icon from your Photos library. The icon will be automatically placed at the center of the white canvas. Click the export icon in the top right corner and proceed to save the icon.

Using the same method, you can also apply backgrounds that are not a solid color (e.g., a photo or a graphic pattern). You simply need to have those at hand in your Photos library and work the magic in Over.

Finally, when all icons are nice and ready, we can create the shortcuts.

Now select the app that you want to see with a new custom icon. We’ll start with Watch.

When the shortcut is created, click the ellipsis icon in the top right corner. Then click “Add to Home Screen”.

In the new modal, edit the home screen name. We entered “Watch” as we want the shortcut to imitate the actual app. When that is done, click on the smaller icon in the modal and click “Choose Photo”.

Then choose the custom Watch icon you saved from Over. Adjust its positioning, so it’s large enough and nicely centered. Then click “Add”.

Hooray! You created your first custom shortcut.

What’s left now is the easiest part — repeating the same process for the remaining custom icons you want to add.

When all icons are added, your Iphone home screen will have a clean aesthetic look.

We selected a bunch of free sets that we believe could work nicely on the home screen:

We hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial. If you have any questions about the process, feel free to ask us in the comments section.

Happy customization!

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