Last updated: October 31st, 2026 at 12:21 UTC+01:00


Stop new app shortcuts from messing up your One UI home screen

Automation doesn't always keep things organized.

Mihai Matei

Reading time: 2 minutes

Samsung Galaxy S26 FE Display

Abhijeet Mishra / SamMobile

Tips & Tricks

Galaxy S26 FE's display

TL;DR

  • Turn off Add new apps to Home screen in One UI Home settings to stop newly installed apps from appearing on your home screen.
  • This prevents Samsung from creating extra blank home screen pages when you install apps and your current pages are full.
  • New app shortcuts will stay in the app drawer until you drag them onto the home screen yourself.

Some Galaxy phone users like multiple home screens; others prefer only one. Some use both the home screen and the apps drawer to organize apps; others — usually ex iOS users — turn off the app drawer entirely.

Needless to say, One UI gives Galaxy phone and tablet users plenty of customization options. There's no right or wrong way to do it.

However, if you like having a well-organized home screen populated with all your favorite apps and widgets, you may have come across the following phenomenon:

You install a new app while your home screen is full, so the system creates a new, blank home screen page for the new app shortcut. You don't want that, so you remove the app shortcut and the new home screen page to restore your original setup.

While it isn't a huge deal, it can get annoying. But the good news is: you can change this behavior. As mentioned before, One UI's customization options are almost limitless.

Take full control of your One UI home screen

To prevent your Samsung Galaxy phone or tablet from automatically creating new home screen shortcuts:

  • Pinch the home screen -> Settings -> turn off Add new apps to Home screen.
One UI home screen settings

Mihai Matei / SamMobile

One UI home screen settings

One UI home screen settings

Mihai Matei / SamMobile

One UI home screen settings

That's it! With this feature turned off, you no longer have to worry about new app shortcuts messing up your home screen configuration. New app shortcuts will be restricted to the app drawer, and you can always tap and drag them to another location or folder.

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