How to save your home screen layout before changing it

Asked on Ask Different (Stack Exchange) since 2011, where the question has over 1,000 views and the top answer is still “take screenshots”, and in 2 more threads on Ask Different and MacRumors.

What Apple gives you to save a layout

• Screenshots. Take a screenshot of every page, then open each folder and take one of that too. They cost nothing and are easy to follow when rebuilding, but they are a picture: putting the layout back is still done by hand, app by app.
• An iCloud or Finder backup. Both include your home screen and app organization. Make one right before you start experimenting. The limit is that Apple restores a backup as a whole, so going back to the old layout means going back to the old phone, with any newer data that is not synced to iCloud lost.
• Nothing else. There is no saved layout, profile or snapshot in Settings you can switch between. Reset Home Screen Layout goes to Apple's default order, not to your previous layout.

Why experimenting on the phone is risky

The home screen editor on the phone changes the real layout as you go. Drag one app onto a full page and the icons after it shift along, spilling onto the next page. Drop a widget and the icons under it move out of the way. After ten minutes of trying things, the old arrangement is gone and there is no undo to step back through.

That is why the safer order is the other way round: design the new layout somewhere else, look at it, and only then change the phone.

Try the new layout as a draft on your Mac

TidyGrid reads the current home screen into a draft on your Mac. Everything you change there stays a draft until you press Apply, and the phone is not touched in the meantime.

1. Connect the iPhone or iPad with a cable and tap Trust on it if asked. TidyGrid reads the Dock, every page, folders and widgets as they are now.
2. Try ideas freely: drag apps, build folders, add or remove pages, or let Arrange put everything By color or A to Z. Undo and redo step back through every change.
3. Close TidyGrid if you need to think about it. The draft is saved for that device and is there when you reconnect.
4. When the draft looks right, press Apply. Before writing, TidyGrid saves the layout that is on the device right now as a backup.
5. If you do not like the result on the phone after a few days, restore that backup. Only the layout changes back; apps and data are not touched.

How many layouts are kept

TidyGrid keeps the last 10 backups for each device, one for every Apply. So you can try a color layout this week, an A to Z layout next week, and still return to the one you had before you started. The backups are stored only on your Mac.

Who this works for

• TidyGrid needs a Mac with Apple silicon and a cable to the iPhone or iPad.
• Reading a layout is tested on iPadOS 15, iOS 16, iOS 17 and iOS 27.
• Applying a layout, and restoring a backup, is tested on iPadOS 15.3.1 and iOS 27.2. iOS 16, iOS 17, iOS 18 and iOS 26 are still in testing, and on those TidyGrid opens the layout read-only and says why.
• TidyGrid is planned for release in early December 2026. Until then there is a waitlist.

What it cannot do

• TidyGrid saves a backup when you press Apply. Changes you make on the phone itself are not tracked, so a layout you build in jiggle mode is only saved the next time you apply something from TidyGrid.
• It cannot read a layout out of an iCloud or Finder backup, or restore one.
• Empty spaces you left between icons on purpose are not read, so they are not kept in the draft or in a backup.
• Whether a configured widget keeps its settings after an apply is still being tested, so take a note of any widget settings you care about.

Questions