You can remove a widget from an iPhone Home Screen without deleting the app that supplied it. The widget disappears from that page, while the application and its data remain on the iPhone.
Remove a Home Screen widget
- Go to the Home Screen that contains the widget.
- Touch and hold the widget.
- Choose Remove Widget.
- Confirm the removal if the iPhone asks.
If the widget is in a stack
A Smart Stack or manually created widget stack contains multiple widgets in the same space. Touch and hold the stack and choose its editing option to remove one widget from the stack without necessarily removing the entire stack.
Removing a widget is not the same as deleting an app
A widget is a view or control supplied by an installed application. Removing it only changes the Home Screen layout. If you want to uninstall the underlying app, use the separate Remove App/Delete App workflow and consider whether the app contains local data you need.
Add the widget again later
Touch and hold an empty area of the Home Screen until editing controls appear, then use the widget gallery to find the app and choose an available widget size. Apple has changed the exact editing buttons and labels across iOS versions, so the interface on a current iPhone may not match an older screenshot exactly.
The iPhone 11 can run substantially newer software than the versions available when many older widget tutorials were written. Keep iOS updated to a version Apple supports for the device, both for security and for the current Home Screen behavior.
Kermit Matthews is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with more than a decade of experience writing technology guides. He has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Computer Science and has spent much of his professional career in IT management.
He specializes in writing content about iPhones, Android devices, Microsoft Office, and many other popular applications and devices.