- 3 hours ago
Turn a boring stock iPhone into a clean, personalized home screen in under 10 minutes with free widgets, wallpapers, and custom icons. This tutorial walks through the full iPhone customization process, from clearing the home screen and importing Widgy widgets to setting up layered widgets, matching wallpapers, and building a brighter light theme that can switch to a dark mode later.
You’ll also see how to use the Shortcuts app to add custom app icons manually, including different icon sets for day and night. The setup is designed to change with the time of day using Focus modes, so your iPhone can automatically swap between light and dark layouts with the right wallpaper and widgets. It’s an easy-to-follow home screen makeover for anyone who wants a more aesthetic iPhone without spending much.
Created for viewers searching for iPhone customization, custom widgets, home screen setup, aesthetic iPhone themes, Shortcuts app icons, and free iPhone wallpaper ideas. A useful guide for quick phone personalization, minimalist home screen design, and practical iOS widget tutorials.
You’ll also see how to use the Shortcuts app to add custom app icons manually, including different icon sets for day and night. The setup is designed to change with the time of day using Focus modes, so your iPhone can automatically swap between light and dark layouts with the right wallpaper and widgets. It’s an easy-to-follow home screen makeover for anyone who wants a more aesthetic iPhone without spending much.
Created for viewers searching for iPhone customization, custom widgets, home screen setup, aesthetic iPhone themes, Shortcuts app icons, and free iPhone wallpaper ideas. A useful guide for quick phone personalization, minimalist home screen design, and practical iOS widget tutorials.
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00Let's be honest, the iPhone isn't very customizable, so I'm going to turn that boring stock setup into this beautiful
00:05home screen that you're going to love in under 10 minutes.
00:08And it's going to be completely free, the widgets and icons are completely free to download, it's going to be
00:12an easy process, and we're going to do it quickly.
00:14Let's jump in.
00:15So here's what I'm currently working with, I have the iPhone 18, and this is the current setup, it's stock.
00:20It looks pretty boring, it's not that great, but I changed it into this setup.
00:24It's a lot more brighter, the icons are great, you can swipe through here, you can see I have different
00:29widgets, I have this amazing clock.
00:32It looks great, I really want to replicate that on my iPhone 18, so let's do it.
00:36And on top of that, one more thing too is that this setup that I'm about to show you is
00:41changeable.
00:42So right now this is the light theme, but later on at night it's going to switch to a dark
00:46mode and with a focus mode that I set.
00:48Plus if I switch over to the dark mode, you can see here that the widgets also turn dark, it
00:53looks great, nice and easy.
00:54Let's jump right in and show you how to do this.
00:56So the first thing I'm going to do is just clear the home screen and boom, there you go.
01:00Now I have a blank home screen ready to go with.
01:02So the first thing I need you to do is download this app called Widgie Widgets.
01:05You can download it on the App Store.
01:07Then in the description I'll put down a Dropbox link with three widgets, custom widgets, and two wallpapers that I'm
01:12using so you can download that right away real easily.
01:15Now these widgets I actually grabbed from Gumroad, this widget pack called Free Widgets Volume 4 from Widgie.
01:19And the reason I ended up just modifying it is because there are not any tappable actions on the widgets
01:25that I use.
01:26So I modified it and added those tappable actions to be able to open stuff when you tap on the
01:31widget.
01:31Okay, from there you're going to want to go into the files app.
01:33You'll find that zip file that we downloaded from Dropbox.
01:36Tap on that.
01:37Then after it's unzipped you can tap on it and you'll see three widgets.
01:40You can tap each one to just import it into Widgie.
01:42So there's one, then you close the app, tap on the date one, close that, and then tap on the
01:49toolset one.
01:51And now you imported those actual widgets.
01:53Now we're just going to go into the Widgie app.
01:55There you can see I have all three widgets and then I'm going to go to the Manage tab and
01:58I'm going to scroll down to the large Widgie slots.
02:01I'm going to select the large number one and then I'm going to select the clock.
02:05Now you can just use one, it's completely free, but if you want to use multiple widgets you're going to
02:09have to pay $7.99.
02:11That's just how Widgie works unfortunately.
02:13So if you want to go a little bit more and get more widgets, that's what you're going to need
02:17to do.
02:17So I'm going to do that.
02:19Okay, so I just bought it.
02:20There you go.
02:21Now I can go into large number two and I can select the next widget.
02:25Now I'm going to go into large number three and do the same with the last one.
02:28And boom, there you go.
02:29Now I'm going to add the widgets themselves.
02:31So I'm going to tap on the left corner, add widgets, and I'm going to look for Widgie.
02:35Boom, there you go.
02:36Now I'm going to look for the large number one.
02:38So add widgets.
02:39Now I'm going to add another one, large number two, add the widget.
02:43And this is my preference, but I can also stack it.
02:46So I just stacked it right then and there.
02:47And then for the last one, I'm going to add the widgets, large number three, adding the widgets.
02:52There you go.
02:53One, two.
02:54If I were you, I would also create two more pages with the same type of widgets,
02:57because we're going to create two different setups that we're going to switch between a light and a dark theme
03:02based on the time of day.
03:04Next for the wallpapers.
03:05I also included them inside the Dropbox link that I provided.
03:08So you can just download them right then by tapping on them and hitting save image, allowing it.
03:13Then the other one is this dark one that I use for the nighttime mode.
03:16So you can save that image too.
03:18And then we're going to want to do is go into the lock screen.
03:20You're going to long press it at the plus icon photos.
03:23And then you're going to select the light.
03:25What I would even do is bring down the blue just a little bit more because it's going to look
03:29great.
03:30And then you're going to click done and it should blur out the home screen right then and there too.
03:34Now we're going to add another profile.
03:36So we're going to add plus and we're going to choose photos and we're going to select the darker one.
03:40And then I'm going to click glad.
03:42And then you can see it blurs automatically set wallpaper pair.
03:45And now we have our dark mode.
03:48Okay.
03:48So we have a light theme and we have a dark theme.
03:51That's why I created an extra set of widgets.
03:54Now before moving on, you've got to toss out your bulky wallet and instead slap on this new ESR Geo
03:59MagSafe wallet stand on your iPhone who's sponsoring this video.
04:02They're thin, clean and even match the same new colors as the latest iPhone 18 devices that just got released,
04:08including the new burgundy color, which looks really great.
04:11So just keep these in mind if you're trying to pre-order those.
04:14And unlike other wallets, this one has Apple Find My built right in.
04:18So you don't need stuff like an AirTag or some other bulky tracker inside your wallet.
04:22If you misplace it, you can literally just ask Siri where your wallet is.
04:27And once you slap it on, it's not going anywhere either since it has a really strong 3200 gram magnetic
04:32hold force.
04:33So it stays locked onto the back of your phone really well.
04:35And despite being pretty slim too, it can still hold up to five cards.
04:39And it has RFID blocking built right in so you don't even have to worry about someone hacking your cards.
04:45And it's very comfortable too.
04:46Like it has a finger loop on the back to just give me a little more grip.
04:49And it even doubles as a stand so you can prop the phone up vertically for scrolling or horizontally if
04:54you're watching something like YouTube.
04:56So if you're already spending the money on the new iPhone 18 or just need a thinner wallet,
05:00the ESR Geo MagSafe Wallet Stand is one of those accessories that actually adds a lot of useful features
05:05instead of just being another MagSafe wallet.
05:08I'll leave the link below if you want to check them out.
05:10Okay, next up to the icons for the light theme, I wanted to go with some dark icons.
05:14So I found these great ones off Gumroad called Blick.
05:17You can add them to your cart.
05:19They also come with colorful options too, but it does cost $3.50 if you want to go with the
05:23colorful icons.
05:24I didn't so I just went with $0 to make it free.
05:28So download it.
05:29And on top of that for a light icon pack, I went with this one called Soft Icon Pack.
05:33It's also free so make sure to download that.
05:35Next going to the Files app, you're going to see the basic pack.
05:38That is for the Blick one with the dark icon.
05:40So open that up and it's going to unzip it.
05:42We have basic icons here and we have third-party apps, system apps.
05:46So we're going to go to third-party apps first.
05:48Here are all the apps that you can use.
05:50They're loading up right here, they're downloading.
05:52But essentially you can just tap on one.
05:54So I'm going to do Instagram and I'm going to select Instagram and I'm going to hit save image.
05:58And I'm just going to do that for all the apps that I want to put on my home screen.
06:01Okay, so now we're going to add the icons to our home screen.
06:04Obviously iPhones don't support icon packs yet.
06:06So we're going to have to do that manually through a workaround.
06:09So we're going to go into the shortcuts app on your iPhone.
06:12Then in here for each icon that we want to use, we're going to create a shortcut for it.
06:16So we're going to click edit and I'm going to start with Instagram.
06:18So I'm going to click open app, select Instagram in here.
06:21There it is, Instagram.
06:23And then at the top, I'm going to rename this to Instagram.
06:27Boom, there you go.
06:28Now I'm going to tap that at the top and I'm going to choose add to home screen.
06:31I'm going to switch it to image, choose the photo.
06:35And in here I have all the icons that we just downloaded.
06:37So I'm going to choose the Instagram icon, choose it, check mark.
06:40And there it is, Instagram.
06:42If I tap it, it's going to open it up.
06:44I didn't set up the app yet, but you get the idea.
06:46Now I'm going to do that for each icon.
06:49A few moments later.
06:50And there you go after a long tedious process of creating all those shortcuts.
06:54As you can see, I go on my home screen and I have all my icons.
06:57You can tap on them and they'll open up very quickly.
07:00The next thing you're going to want to do is if you want, you can also make these bigger.
07:05So that way you can see, you know, no titles, especially for the widgets.
07:07So if we click on customize, you can enlarge these and there you go.
07:12It looks a lot cleaner.
07:14You have a really nice setup right here.
07:15So you can stop right then and there.
07:16But if you want a dark theme that changes at night, here's what you want to do.
07:20So go back into the lock screen, switch over to the dark wallpaper.
07:24Now here's where you're going to want to do.
07:25First off, you're going to want to go in here and you're going to want to click on shortcuts.
07:29And you're going to want to basically do the same exact thing, but this time with the white icons.
07:33So go back into the files app and go into soft icon pack.
07:37And here you can download the white icons.
07:39I know it's a tedious process, but in the end it'll all work out.
07:42And you only need to do this once.
07:44So now that I downloaded all my apps, I'm going to go back into the shortcuts app.
07:47And I don't even need to create shortcuts for new apps that I already created.
07:51So if, for example, if I have Instagram already, I can just go to the Instagram shortcut, tap it,
07:56and I can just add it to the home screen.
07:58And then I can choose photo and then I can choose the white icon.
08:02I don't need to create two separate shortcuts for it.
08:04So there you go.
08:04I'm going to choose the icon for Instagram, check mark, and boom, there it is.
08:09I'm going to do that again for all the white icons.
08:13Two hours later.
08:14And there you go.
08:15I did all the icons for the homepage.
08:16I didn't do the second page because you get the basic idea of doing it.
08:20You can just add all the icons and you can still tap them and they'll open up real easily,
08:24real quickly, nicely.
08:26And of course, what you can do is enlarge them too.
08:28So I'm going to click on customize and I'm going to enlarge them.
08:31Now to switch between those two different setups based on the time of day,
08:34here's what you're going to want to do.
08:35Just go into the settings, search up focus, and then you're going to want to create a new focus mode.
08:40We're going to create a custom one and we're going to name it day.
08:43And then we're going to give it the day icon, maybe orange, doesn't really matter.
08:48Then right here, we're going to choose the light wallpaper.
08:51Check that.
08:52And then on top of that, we're going to choose our dark icons.
08:56So we'll do our dark icons.
08:57And then we're going to choose our schedule.
08:59We're going to add a schedule.
09:00So I'm going to do time.
09:01So we can do from 9 a.m. to maybe around when the sun sets, maybe around 6 p.m.
09:06And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to go back.
09:08I'm going to add a night mode.
09:10There you go.
09:11Night.
09:11And then I'm going to choose the sun setting.
09:13And then I'm going to choose the dark lock screen.
09:17And I'm going to choose the ones with the light icons.
09:21And then the last thing obviously is add the schedule.
09:23So I'm going to go time.
09:25And then I'm going to start it at around 6.01 p.m.
09:28And I'm going to end it at maybe 5 in the morning.
09:32Now it automatically switched between those two different pages.
09:34You can see there nice and easily.
09:37So when it's nighttime, this is going to be your setup.
09:40And there you go.
09:41That's how I made my setup extremely nice and way better than before on my iPhone.
09:44By the way, I've created different setups for different OEMs and smartphones out there,
09:48including Samsung, Pixel, and I'll be doing more in the future.
09:51So if you like these videos, definitely give me a thumbs up.
09:54Thanks so much for sticking around to the end.
09:56And I'll catch you guys in the next one.
09:58Kapow!