How to Get Dark Icons in iOS 18 (And More New Features)

How to Get Dark Icons in iOS 18

Tap and hold a blank area of the Home screen. The icons will begin to jiggle, and the "Edit" option will appear.

Tap Edit at the upper-right corner. A menu will expand.

Tap Customize. This brings up a new menu at the bottom with different icon preferences.

Tap Dark to get dark icons. Dark icons have dark gray, almost black backgrounds. The color of your icons will change instantly. If you have a light-colored background image, try tapping the sun icon to tint it darker—it'll better match your dark icons.

Try Tinted to customize dark monochromatic icons. Another new iOS 18 icon color option is Tinted, which also gives you dark icons, but replaces the icons' foreground colors with a single tinted shade. You can drag the color slider to choose the tint color, and the brightness slider to make the tint brighter or darker. A third option is Automatic, which makes your icons dark at night, while keeping them light in the day.

Tap anywhere on the Home screen to save your changes. You can now enjoy your new dark iOS 18 icons. Swipe all the way to the right to see all of your new dark icons in the App Library.

Why are some icons not dark?

Not all apps have dark icons. If you swipe over to the App Library, you'll probably see that some of your icons haven't changed color. While all of the preinstalled apps on your iPhone have both dark and light icons to choose from, you won't be able to change the color of other app icons if their developers haven't added dark icons in an update. If an app's icon has a solid background color that's part of its logo design (such as Amazon's brown box icon and Reddit's red robot icon), the developer may be unable to create a dark icon. Instead, they'll add a darker-tinted version of the original icon to match dark icon themes better. Quick fix: If you want darker icons but don't like that some icons are still brightly colored, use Tinted instead. This makes every icon on your iPhone a uniform tinted color.

Other New Customization Options in iOS 18

Move apps and widgets anywhere on the Home screen. Great news: Your apps and widgets no longer have to be right next to each other—you can now drag an app or widget to any open space on the Home screen to customize your layout exactly as you wish. Here's how: Tap and hold any app icon on the Home screen and select Edit Home Screen. Drag an app or widget to any location—even if there are no other icons or widgets in that spot. Lift your finger to place the icon or widget, then tap any open space to save your changes.

Hide icon text. Are you tired of seeing app names below your icons? You can now hide icon text by switching to Large icon mode. To hide icon text in iOS 18: Tap and hold the Home screen and select Edit. Tap Customize. Tap Large to increase the size of the icons a bit, which instantly hides the icon text.

A fully customizable Control Center. While it was always possible to add controls to Control Center, you can now add even more controls, including from third-party apps. The Control Center now also spans multiple pages, so you can organize your controls by type. To edit the Control Center: Swipe down from the top-right of the Home screen (or swipe up if you're using an iPhone or iPad with a Home button) to open Control Center. Swipe up and down to see the new Control Center pages. To add a new control, select a page, tap + at the top-left, then select Add a Control. You'll find all sorts of new options, including multiple clock features, a new text size slider, more accessibility settings, and even controls from third-party apps like Instagram and Phillips Hue.

Customize your lock screen apps. While you could previously launch only the camera and flashlight from the lock screen, you can now swap these app icons for other options. Press the side button twice to go to the lock screen. Press and hold the lock screen, then tap Customize when it appears. If this doesn't work, try again, but enter your passcode to unlock your phone or tablet. Tap the - on either the flashlight or camera icon to remove it. Tap + and select a new app for your lock screen.