Customize Apple TV Home Screen in a Few Easy Steps

Nov 4, 2019

We'll show you how to customize Apple TV home screen in a few easy steps and make the set top box slightly more personal.

Customize Apple TV Home Screen and Make Your Living Room Experience Slightly More Personal

Devices like the Apple TV aren't exactly customizable. The home screen is always mundane at best, and you'll be spending most of the time running an app like Netflix or YouTube anyway so the home screen doesn't quite matter to a lot of people. But, if you are looking to spice things up a little, then we will teach how to customize Apple TV home screen, and hopefully make things slightly more personal. This includes things like rearranging app icons, adding folders, or even change the theme from light to dark or vice versa. What you can't do is change the wallpaper, which is sad given how great that would have been.

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Move App Icons in tvOS

Let's start with the absolute essential first. You need your favorite apps to be on the top-most row or in an order that highlights the relevant ones first and all the not-so-used ones at the bottom of the home screen.

Select the app icon which you want to move
Hold the touch surface of the Apple TV Siri Remote until the icon starts to wiggle
Now move the icon to the desired location
Press the touch surface again to confirm the location

Set a Light or Dark Theme in tvOS

We can't have wallpapers, but we can have a certain light or dark theme in tvOS. It actually makes a lot of difference to have a dark theme, as it's more easier on the eyes and may help you achieve that Batman look.

customize Apple TV home screen by setting light or dark theme

Launch the Settings app
Navigate to General > Appearance.
Select your Dark or Light theme from here. Or, select Automatic if you want tvOS to switch themes automatically to a dark one after sunset.

Create Folders on Home Screen and Rename them

Have too many apps of the same kind? Why not just put them in a folder and make things super awesome and easy to access? Follow the steps on how to create a folder.

customize Apple TV home screen by adding folders

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Select an app and then press and hold the touch surface on the remote to enter edit/wiggle mode
Move the selected app onto the other and a folder will automatically be created
Move all apps you want inside this folder
Press the touch surface again to save everything
Need to rename the folder's name? Swipe up while inside the folder and give it a unique name.

Delete an App that Does Not Belong

Customize Apple TV home screen even further by getting rid of the apps which you don't want. This is a great way to declutter things and give yourself a fresh slate.