I’ve added a bunch of lock screen and home screen wallpapers on my iPhone and now it feels cluttered. I can’t figure out how to remove or delete the ones I don’t want anymore. Where exactly are the settings or steps to permanently delete wallpapers instead of just changing them?
Yeah, iOS hides this in a weird way. You delete wallpapers from the lock screen itself, not in Settings.
Do this:
- Wake your iPhone.
- Stay on the lock screen.
- Long-press on the lock screen background until the wallpaper gallery pops up.
- You will see all your lock screen setups as cards you can swipe through.
- Swipe left or right to the wallpaper you want to remove.
- When you are on the one you want gone, tap “Delete Wallpaper” at the bottom.
- Confirm.
That deletes that whole setup, lock + its linked home screen.
If you want to change only the home screen behind your apps:
- Go to Settings.
- Tap Wallpaper.
- Tap the home screen preview.
- Pick a new one or set a solid color or blur.
- Tap Done.
But the clutter from “too many wallpapers” gets fixed from the long-press on the lock screen. I missed that for weeks and thought I was losing my mind lol.
Yeah, Apple really went out of its way to make this confusing. @voyageurdubois covered the lock screen long-press trick pretty well, so I’ll skip re-explaining that step-by-step.
A few extra angles that might help:
1. Check what’s actually “linked” vs separate
When you create a lock screen, iOS often asks if you want to “Set as Wallpaper Pair.” If you said yes, deleting that lock screen (via the long‑press gallery) also deletes that paired home screen layout.
If you ever chose “Customize Home Screen” separately, that home screen style is just tied to that lock screen setup and goes away with it too. There’s no extra hidden list in Settings to clean up; the clutter is almost always those extra lock screen cards.
2. Make one “default” setup and nuke the rest
What worked for me when things got messy:
- Pick the lock screen you actually want to keep.
- Customize it once (widgets, style, home screen look).
- Then, from the lock screen gallery, swipe through and delete everything else so you end up with just 1 or 2 total.
Feels less like “deleting wallpapers” and more like cleaning out a deck of cards.
3. Don’t hunt for a big master list in Settings
This is where I slightly disagree with how a lot of people explain it: the Settings → Wallpaper screen is kind of misleading. It looks like it should show all saved wallpapers, but it only shows the one(s) tied to your currently active lock screen.
So if you’re tapping around there and thinking “where are all the others I made?” they simply aren’t listed anywhere. The only real “manager” is that lock screen gallery that pops up from long‑pressing the lock screen.
4. If the home screen feels cluttered, not the lock screen
Sometimes the feeling of “too many wallpapers” is actually:
- Busy home screen background
- Too much contrast behind app icons
- Focus modes auto-switching your wallpapers
You can calm that down without messing with all the others by:
- Going to Settings > Wallpaper
- Tapping the Home Screen preview
- Choosing Color or Blur so it’s simple and boring in a good way
5. Watch out for Focus modes changing wallpapers
If your wallpaper keeps changing “by itself” and it feels like you have way too many:
- On a lock screen card, tap the Focus icon (little word like “Personal,” “Work,” etc.)
- Turn off those associations you don’t actually want
- Or remove those extra Focus-specific lock screens from the gallery
Once you realize that everything lives in that lock screen carousel and Settings just tweaks the currently selected one, the whole system starts to feel a lot less insane.