How to hide apps on a Google Pixel phone

Your smartphone is personal. For most people, it’s a digital home for everything they do online, a tool they use multiple times a day, and a way to express themselves. Operating system makers like Apple and Google build in new customization features every few years to make things like that possible, but there’s also a simpler way to make your phone yours: deciding what apps you have on your home screen. If you have a Pixel phone, for example, how much control do you have over what apps on your home screen, and what can you do with them if you don’t want to uninstall them?

Considering the control Google gives you over how your smartphone looks, the answer is more complicated than you might expect, and it’s set to change even further when Android 15 is released. Here’s how to hide apps you don’t want to clutter up your home screen on the current version of Android, and the new options you’ll have when Android 15 comes to Pixel phones later this fall.

How to hide apps from your home screen on Pixel phones

Hiding apps on Pixel running Android 14

By default, when you download a new app from the Google Play Store, it will be installed on your home screen wherever there’s still space for an icon. If you go on an app downloading spree setting up a new Pixel 9, that can quickly fill your phone with icons you might not necessarily need access to all the time. Besides tucking an app into a folder, your options for “hiding” these numerous icons from the home screen are limited. You can uninstall them, or you can remove them from your home screen so that they’ll only appear in the app drawer. That’s it.

Assuming you still want to use these apps, here’s how to hide them from your home screen:

1. Find the app on your Pixel’s home screen.
2. Tap and hold your finger on the app icon.
3. Drag the app towards the top of your Pixel screen, placing the icon in the bubble to the left labeled “Remove.”
4. Release the app icon, and it will be removed from your home screen but still available in the App Drawer.

Hiding apps on a Pixel running Android 15 with Private Space

As part of Android 15, Google is introducing a new feature called Private Space for hiding and securing apps that you might want to keep separate from the rest of your smartphone. These apps live in a separate folder in the app drawer, have to be installed directly there, and can even be hidden completely from view when the Private space is locked. You can test out the feature now if you’re running a beta version of Android 15, or wait until Android 15 is released.

Here’s how to enable Private Space:

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap on the Security & Privacy section.
3. Tap on “Private space.”
4. Verify that it’s you, scroll through Google’s instructions, and then tap on “Set up” in the bottom right corner.
5. Connect a Google Account to the “Private space.”
6. Choose a new lock for the space or use the same lock you use for your Pixel.
7. Tap Done and the Private Space will be available in the App Drawer.

Once space is created, here’s how to install apps to it:

1. Open the App Drawer by swiping up from your home screen.
2. Scroll down to the section labeled “Private space,” and tap on it.
3. Confirm your identity.
4. Tap on the plus icon (+) to move to the Play Store and find apps.
5. Install an app by tapping “Install.”

Apps will only be visible when the Private Space has been unlocked. If you want to hide the space completely, you can enable that inside of the Settings app.

You don’t need to delete your Android apps to remove them from home screen

Private Space feels like the tip of the iceberg when it comes to making your phone yours

While it feels a little extreme to hide apps in a biometrically secured folder on your phone. It’s currently one of the few ways to actually keep your apps from being visible in your home screen and your app drawer. At some point, Google might offer a less serious way to make apps invisible, but for the time being, Private Space is your best bet, and it won’t be available to every Pixel owner until later this fall.

If you’re looking for a simpler way to hide, remove, and otherwise organize apps, you could also install a new launcher. That way, you might get even more customization options in the process. There are also plenty of unique widgets to experiment with too.