iOS 18 Beta: How to Easily Add and Resize Your iPhone's Home Screen Widgets

Apple released iOS 18’s sixth public beta on Aug. 29, a few days after the tech giant announced it will hold its iPhone launch event on Monday, Sept. 9. In addition to more ways to customize your lock screen and home screen, the new operating system also lets you resize widgets on your home screen and quickly turn your apps into widgets.

In past iOS versions, you’d have to delete a widget if you didn’t like its size. After deleting it, you’d have to go through the whole process of choosing the right size, adding it to your screen and then finding the right spot for it. Now, you don’t have to take those extra steps and can instantly resize your widget.

I recommend downloading a beta only on something other than your primary device. Because this isn’t the final version of iOS 18, the update might be buggy and battery life may be short, and it’s best to keep those troubles on a secondary device. I download betas to my old iPhone XR to keep any issues away from my iPhone 14 Pro.

Note that the beta is not the final version of iOS 18, so there could be more features to land on your iPhone when iOS 18 is released. Apple said iOS 18 would be released to the public this fall, but there’s no definitive date yet.

Here’s how you can add and resize your widgets from your home screen in the iOS 18 betas.

How to add widgets to your home screen

Long-press on an app until a menu appears. Then, you’ll see some new tiled icons in the shape of different widgets.

An app menu with options to resize the icon outlined — You can transform the Photos app into four different sized widgets.

Apple/Screenshot by CNET

Some apps, like Weather, show four different sized options: the app icon, a small tile, a longer tile and then a large tile that looks like a whole page. Other apps, like Contacts, will only show the tile icon and one other tile option. Tap the size widget you want to try and your app will expand on your home screen in real time. But some apps, like Messages, don’t have widgets so you won’t see these options.

Prior to the iOS 18 betas, you had to long-press on your home screen, tap the plus (+) sign in the top right corner of your screen and then search for the right widget. Now you can easily add widgets without look for them.

How to change the size of widgets on your home screen

You can also change the size of widgets the same way. Long-press on a widget until the menu appears, and then select the widget size you want to try.

If you’ve arranged your apps in a particular way around your home screen, adding or changing the size of widgets will likely disrupt your custom layout. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a way to lock in custom app layouts, so you might have to rearrange your apps again after adding a widget or changing its size.

Don’t forget, iOS 18 is still in beta so this feature could be buggy or not work properly. There will likely be more betas before the OS is released to the public, so there’s plenty of time for Apple to address any issues. As of now, though, there’s no word on when Apple will release iOS 18.

For more on iOS 18, here’s my hands-on experience with the iOS 18 beta, how to get rid of your flashlight from your lock screen and our iOS 18 cheat sheet. You can also check out what we might see at Apple’s September iPhone event.