How to add widget to home screen on ipad

Widgets provide easy access to favorite apps and content; no need to tap and swipe through multiple home screens to find what you need. Headlines, weather forecasts, calendar appointments, stock market updates, battery levels, and more are front and center.

Table of Contents Show

Update Your Device
About Lance Whitney
How to Add Widgets to the Home Screen
Widget Sizes and Other Functions
Siri Suggestions Widget
Widget Stacks
Third Party Widgets
How do I put my widget on my Home Screen?
Why won't my iPad Let me add widgets?
How do I customize my iPad Home Screen?

For example, you could create a widget for the Music app that shows the last album you played, a News app widget that shows the current headlines, a widget for the Calendar app that shows just today’s appointments, or a widget for the Notes app that shows the last note you created.

A mainstay on Android for ages, widgets finally landed on Apple devices in recent years, and have been upgraded with each new iteration of iOS and iPadOS. With iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, you could more easily add and remove widgets, change their layout and size, and move them anywhere on your home screen. People also made cool custom icons using the Shortcuts app.

Now with iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, you can add more kinds of widgets and choose what content you wish to see. Here’s how to work with widgets on an iPhone or iPad.

Update Your Device

Apple's iPhone 13 Lineup Reviewed

Apple Fan?

This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.

Thanks for signing up!

Your subscription has been confirmed. Keep an eye on your inbox!

About Lance Whitney

Contributor

I've been working for PCMag since early 2016 writing tutorials, how-to pieces, and other articles on consumer technology. Beyond PCMag, I've written news stories and tutorials for a variety of other websites and publications, including CNET, ZDNet, TechRepublic, Macworld, Popular Science, Time, Fortune, US News & World Report, and AARP Magazine. I spent seven years writing breaking news for CNET as one of the site’s East Coast reporters. I've also written two books for Wiley & Sons—Windows 8: Five Minutes at a Time and Teach Yourself Visually LinkedIn.

Since iOS 14, iPhone users have been able to customize their Home Screen with the help of widgets, which are similar to the widgets available on Android phones.

Widgets took a little longer to arrive on iPad, and their use was initially limited to the Today view on the left side of the ‌Home Screen‌. With the release of iPadOS 15, however, widgets can be placed anywhere on the ‌Home Screen‌ of your ‌iPad‌, offering just as much customization as ‌iPhone‌ users enjoy. Here's how it works.

How to Add Widgets to the Home Screen

There a couple of ways you can add widgets to the ‌Home Screen‌. If you long press on a widget in the Today View (swipe rightwards from the left side of the screen to reveal it), you'll see an Edit Home Screen option in the popup menu. Tapping this enters jiggle mode, and from there you can drag widgets out of the Today View and place them anywhere on the ‌Home Screen‌.

When in jiggle mode, notice the plus (+) button in the top-left corner of the screen. You'll find the same button appear if you long press on a blank area of the ‌‌Home Screen‌‌ or any additional page of apps. Tapping this button opens the Widget Gallery, where you can add and customize ‌widgets‌.

In the Widget Gallery, you can search for a specific widget or scroll through the available options. Tapping on a widget in the list lets you see the size and content options that are available for the widget. To add a widget to the Today View or the ‌‌Home Screen‌‌, select it, choose a size (small, medium, or large), and then tap the Add Widget button.

When you customize a new widget, you'll notice that the larger the size of the widget, the more content it can display. In the Weather widget, for example, the smallest widget shows the current conditions, while the largest displays the forecast for the next few days.

Bear in mind that bigger ‌widgets‌ take up more space on your ‌‌Home Screen‌‌. A small widget takes up the space of four apps in a square shape, but a medium widget takes up the space of eight apps in a rectangle shape, and a large widget takes up the space of 16 apps in a square shape.

Some apps also have different widget options based on function. In the ‌Apple News‌ widget, for example, you can choose to see relevant news from the day or get stories about a specific topic of interest. You can change this function on an existing ‌‌Apple News‌‌ widget anytime. Just long press on the widget and then select Edit "News."

When you've got some ‌widgets‌ on your ‌‌Home Screen‌‌, you can move them around, just like apps. Simply long press on the screen to enter jiggle mode and then drag a widget around with your finger.

In the Widget Gallery, if you scroll down to the list section you'll see a Siri Suggestions widget. This dynamic widget displays app suggestions based on your ‌‌‌iPhone‌‌‌ usage habits, similar to what shows up under ‌‌Siri‌‌ Suggestions when you use an ‌‌‌iPhone‌‌‌'s search function.

With widget stacks, you can stack multiple ‌widgets‌ on top of one another, so you can put all of your favorites together and then swap between them with an upward or downward swipe of the finger.

Apple has also added a special "Smart Stack," which is a widget stack that uses ‌‌Siri‌‌ Intelligence to surface the most relevant and useful widget based on your ‌‌iPhone‌‌ usage habits.

Third Party Widgets

Apple allows developers to create their own ‌‌Home Screen‌‌ ‌widgets‌ to augment in-app functions, so keep an eye out for available ‌widgets‌ for your most loved third-party apps.

Add a widget.

On a Home screen, touch and hold an empty space..

Tap Widgets ..

Touch and hold a widget. You'll get images of your Home screens..

Slide the widget to where you want it. Lift your finger..

Why won't my iPad Let me add widgets?

Restart Your iPhone or iPad If a specific widget or set of widgets appears blank or won't load, it's best to kick things off by restarting your iPhone or iPad. That's a quick way to fix most issues brought about by buggy apps and system software. To do that, open the Settings app and select General > Shut Down.