How to remove iPhone Home Screen widgets and save battery

Widgets make an iPhone more useful at a glance. A weather panel can show whether you need a jacket in Melbourne, a calendar widget can display the next appointment, and a battery widget can show the charge level of connected accessories. The trade-off is that some widgets refresh information in the background, use location services, or connect to the internet.

Removing unnecessary Home Screen widgets can reduce this background activity, although the battery improvement may be modest. Your screen brightness, mobile reception, 5G use, app activity and battery health usually have a larger effect. Widget removal is still a sensible clean-up step when an iPhone is losing charge faster than expected.

The steps work on recent iOS versions, including iOS 17 and iOS 18, with minor differences in wording depending on the model and software. The same process applies whether you use an iPhone 15 purchased through the Australian Apple Store, an older iPhone bought second-hand, or a device connected to a Telstra, Optus or Vodafone plan.

Remove a widget from the Home Screen

Start by unlocking the iPhone and finding the Home Screen page containing the widget. If you have several pages, swipe left or right until the widget appears. You can also use the Home Screen search function or App Library to move around quickly, but the widget itself must be visible before it can be removed.

Touch and hold the widget until a menu appears. Tap Remove Widget, then tap Remove when the confirmation message appears. The widget will disappear immediately, while the associated app remains installed. Removing a Weather widget, for example, does not delete the Weather app or remove saved locations.

You can also touch and hold an empty area of the Home Screen until the app icons begin to jiggle. Tap the minus button in the top-left corner of the widget, select Remove from Home Screen, and confirm. When you finish, tap Done in the top-right corner, or tap the Home button on older iPhone models.

Deleting a widget does not erase its settings or data. If you add it again later, the app may still remember your chosen city, calendar accounts or display preferences. This makes it easy to test whether a particular widget affects battery life without permanently changing the rest of your iPhone setup.

Remove widgets from a Smart Stack

A Smart Stack is a group of widgets occupying the same Home Screen space. You can swipe through the stack to see items such as Weather, Calendar, News, Photos or battery information. iOS may change which widget appears at different times based on your habits, location and activity.

To remove the entire Smart Stack, touch and hold it and tap Remove Stack. Confirm the action when prompted. This removes every widget inside that stack from the Home Screen, but it does not uninstall any of the apps represented there.

To remove only one item, touch and hold the Smart Stack and tap Edit Stack. Locate the widget you no longer need, swipe left on it, and tap Delete or the bin button. You can also switch off Smart Rotate or Widget Suggestions if you want the stack to remain fixed rather than changing automatically.

A stack that contains a frequently updating Weather, News or Fitness widget may perform more background work than a simple static shortcut. Removing the most active items first is a useful compromise if you still want quick access to a calendar or battery display. You do not have to remove the whole stack to reduce unnecessary updates.

Choose which widgets are worth keeping

Battery savings depend on what a widget does. A static widget that displays information already stored on the phone may have little measurable effect. A widget that repeatedly checks a server, tracks your location, downloads images or monitors live activity has more potential to use power and mobile data.

Weather widgets can request location information and refresh forecasts. News, social media and sports widgets may fetch new content throughout the day. Travel, map, delivery and rideshare widgets can also update based on location or changing trip details. Removing widgets for apps you rarely open is a practical way to reduce background tasks without affecting essential functions.

Consider removing widgets for stock prices, live scores, news headlines, cryptocurrency, social feeds and shopping deliveries if you do not need them visible. This can be particularly useful when travelling between Australian cities, where a widget may keep checking location or local conditions as you move from Sydney to Brisbane or Perth.

Keep widgets that provide genuine value, such as a calendar, reminders, medication schedule or battery status. The aim is not to make the Home Screen empty. It is to remove panels that duplicate notifications or apps you can open just as quickly.

Limit background activity and location access

Removing Home Screen widgets is only part of the battery-saving process. An app can continue refreshing in the background even after its widget has gone. To review this activity, open Settings, tap General, then choose Background App Refresh. You can turn the feature off completely or disable it for selected apps.

Switching off Background App Refresh does not stop an app from working when you open it. It means the app may need a moment to fetch current information after launching. This is often a reasonable trade-off for social media, shopping, news and entertainment apps, particularly when you are using a prepaid Australian mobile plan and want to reduce background data use.

Location access can also affect battery life. Go to Settings, tap Privacy & Security, and choose Location Services. Select an app to review its permission. Change non-essential apps to Never or While Using the App, and consider switching off Precise Location where an approximate location is enough.

Do not disable location access indiscriminately. Maps, emergency features, weather alerts, Find My and some transport apps may need it to work properly. A navigation app used during a long drive from Adelaide to Melbourne may require continuous location access, while a restaurant app does not need to know where you are every minute of the day.

Check whether widget removal made a difference

Before changing several settings, check your current battery pattern. Open Settings, tap Battery, and review the activity chart and list of apps. The screen shows which apps have used the most power over the previous 24 hours or the past several days. Tap an app to see whether its activity occurred on screen or in the background.

Make one or two changes, then use the iPhone normally for a day or two. Removing every widget at once makes it difficult to identify what helped. If battery performance improves after deleting a live news or location-based widget, you have useful evidence that it was contributing to background activity.

Battery performance can vary for reasons unrelated to widgets. A weak mobile signal forces the iPhone to work harder, which may happen in regional areas, underground car parks or large buildings. Streaming over 5G, taking photos in bright sunlight, using navigation and running games can also drain the battery quickly.

Heat is another important factor in Australia. Leaving an iPhone on a car dashboard during a hot Queensland afternoon can cause the device to reduce performance or pause charging. Keep it out of direct sun, avoid charging under a pillow or in an enclosed hot space, and check Settings > Battery > Battery Health & Charging if the phone seems to lose capacity quickly.

If the battery still drains unusually fast, update iOS and the affected apps, restart the iPhone, and check Battery Health for a significantly reduced maximum capacity. A replacement battery may be more effective than removing every widget when the battery is physically worn. Apple and authorised repair providers in Australia can provide current service options and pricing.

Widgets can also affect data use rather than battery use alone. This matters when travelling overseas, using a limited data allowance, or relying on a regional plan with poor coverage. To see cellular data activity, open Settings > Mobile, then review which apps have used mobile data. Turn off mobile data for apps that do not need to update away from Wi-Fi.

The cleanest approach is selective removal. Delete widgets that refresh frequently, ask for location data or repeat information already available through notifications. Keep the small number of widgets that genuinely save time, then monitor battery activity rather than assuming every widget has the same impact.

Spend a few minutes clearing unused Home Screen widgets, reviewing Background App Refresh and checking location permissions. These simple adjustments can make an iPhone feel less busy, reduce avoidable background activity and help preserve charge during a long day, whether that means commuting across Melbourne, working outdoors in Darwin or travelling between Australian cities.