How to make your iPhone boring

To make your iPhone boring, remove the rewards: color, badges, feeds, and the open-ended search bar. What's left is a phone you pick up when you need something and put down when you're done.

Start by changing the parts of your phone that draw your attention: its appearance, notifications, apps, and browser.

Does turning your iPhone grayscale actually work?

Grayscale removes the bright colors that can make the screen feel inviting. Some people find that helpful; try it and see whether it changes how you use your phone.

Turn it on:

Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters.
Turn Color Filters on and pick Grayscale.
Optional: Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut > check Color Filters. Now a triple-click of the side button toggles grayscale, so you can flip color back on for photos.

If full grayscale is too much, iOS 18 lets you tint every icon a single dark color instead. Hold the Home Screen, tap Edit > Customize, choose Dark and Tinted. Pick a dull gray. The wallpaper stays in color but the icons stop shouting.

Turn off badges and most notifications

A red number on an icon is a tiny promise that something happened. Break the promise.

Settings > Notifications, then app by app: turn off Badges for everything. Turn off notifications entirely for anything that isn't a person or a deadline. Keep Messages, Phone, Calendar, and your two-factor app. That's about it.

Also go to Settings > Notifications > Scheduled Summary and turn it off if it's on. A summary is still a feed.

Remove the feeds from the Home Screen

Widgets are feeds in disguise. A News widget, a stock ticker, a photo memories carousel, a Safari "frequently visited" widget: each one gives you something new every time you look. Remove all of them.

Hold the Home Screen, tap the minus on every widget. Keep a plain clock or calendar widget if you want. Nothing that changes on its own.

Then reduce your Home Screen to one page. Hold the screen, tap the page dots, uncheck the other pages. Leave 8 to 12 tools on the one page you keep. The other pages are hidden. Their apps remain accessible in the App Library by category or search, so this tidies the screen without restricting access.

Remove the distractions in four steps

A quieter Home Screen only goes so far while social apps and spare browsers are still available. Use the same four steps as Anti Browser's onboarding to finish the setup.

Before you start, install Anti Browser and any essential apps you want to keep. Set Anti as your default browser in Settings > Apps > Default Apps > Browser. Do this before blocking downloads: iOS requires another browser to be installed before it will let you disable Safari.

Anti Browser includes this four-step guide during onboarding, along with a Screen Time code generator and vault. If you use its generator, Anti keeps the code stored in the vault in case you ever need it.

Block Downloads. Turn off new installs so the apps you delete can't come back. Go to Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions, enable it, then tap iTunes & App Store Purchases > Installing Apps > Don't Allow.
Block Safari. One browser is enough. In Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions, enable restrictions, tap Allowed Apps & Features, and turn Safari off. Links sent to your default browser now open in Anti.
Delete. On home screen. Social apps and spare browsers go now; your accounts stay intact. Long press an app, tap Remove App, then Delete App and confirm deletion. Repeat for other distracting apps, keeping Anti and your essential tools.
Lock. A Screen Time passcode keeps these settings out of reach of a bad five minutes. Open Settings > Screen Time, scroll down, and tap Lock Screen Time Settings. Have a friend or family member set a code, or use Anti Browser's code generator. Anti stores the generated code in its vault in case you ever need it.

For each tap in the sequence, see how to turn your iPhone into a dumbphone.

Adjusting to a quieter phone

You may still pick up the phone out of habit. Having fewer distractions gives you a chance to notice that impulse and put it down. The phone still handles texts, photos, directions, and payments; how quickly your habits change will vary.

If you want the full version of this, see the minimalist iPhone setup that keeps the camera and Maps. If the problem is specifically the late night scroll, start with how to stop doomscrolling on iPhone.