Keeping your home screen organized can sometimes be a difficult task. Folders are great, but what if you’re looking for a deeper level of order? Luckily, we’ve seen a few glitches over time that have helped.
Hidden in iOS 8 is a glitch that allows you to nest folders within folders. This can be helpful if you’d like to sub-categorize apps within folders or hide various stock apps in iOS 8 (because there are a lot of them). Nesting folders on iOS 8 is easy to do and completely reversible…
At this moment, we’ve tested the nested folders glitch on iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 5s, and 5c, but it should work with almost every iOS 8 compatible device. If you’d like to create your own nested folders, follow the video tutorial or the steps written below:
Step 1: Create a folder with any apps you’d like to be nested within another folder.
Step 2: Create a second folder using two apps on the home screen and (at nearly the same time) quickly drag the folder from the step above into the new folder. You must drag the first folder into the second folder right as the new one is being created.
Step 3: Enjoy.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf8nUg20iMg]
As I mentioned, this is a very simple process, but it can be extremely helpful and allow you to hide apps or sub-categorize apps within folders. If you’d like to reverse the process, all you’ll need to do is drag any of the nested folders back out to the home screen. If you’ve created a lot of nested folders, you can always head into the Settings app and go to: General > Reset > Reset Home Screen Layout. This will return the home screen layout to a stock configuration, but it will not delete any data from your device.
Hopefully this little glitch/tip was helpful. At this point in time, using folders is the only method of organization available with iOS. Keep in mind, it’s possible that Apple will patch this in a future update to iOS, but similar glitches have appeared throughout iOS revisions since iOS 7. Basically, don’t expect this to last over the next couple of updates to iOS 8, but we’ll probably see a similar glitch surface again in the future. If you find any other iOS 8/iPhone 6 tips and tricks that you think we should know about or have issues with this glitch, be sure to let us know with a comment.
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It would be interesting to see what happens to subcategorized apps after an update
This bug used to exist prior to iOS 8, and after updating (from what I can remember), the apps inside the nested folder were just moved into the containing folder.
This glitch is present in ios7 too! You don’t need to update your iphone to do this. I am using ios 7.1.2 still and its easy to create one nested folder as you guys said. I didn’t update my 5s because I am worried about the speed and all over battery performance. First I want to confirm that updating my iphone 5s (64gb) to ios 8 will be a good idea. Its like everyone forgot about the best selling smartphone till date after the launch of the iphone 6/6+ (the next BIG thing). Can anyone from 9to5mac help me? Can you guys post your review on the iphone 5s running the latest ios, it’s performance and battery backup (same or better) and also its comparison to iphone 6/6+? please, please, please,please,………….. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
I just tested it. It works on iPhone 4 in iOS 7.1.2
I’ve been hoping for this feature since before iOS 6 came out!
John
umFlight.com
Yes! It worked on my 5S.
We better make as many sub folders as we can before Apple shoots this down.
Can’t get it to work on the iPod touch 5G
That’s weird. I can. How many GB do you hand on your iPod touch?
The amount of space it has doesn’t matter. Unless it’s at 99.999999%, which is impossible without jail breaking (and if it is jail broken, a better solution like a Cydia tweak would work.)
It does glitch to a point where your software crashes and you have to reset in iTunes in IOS 7.1.2 I know from experience with this glitch after making 10+ subfolders
Works on the iPad Air
YAY!
If you add a folder within a folder within a folder the wallpaper changes to an image of leonardo dicaprio.
LoL, and like Siri, you fall into a deep sleep…
Can you download to those folders within a folder?
What do you mean? Like, choosing a location for where an app will go before you start downloading it? That’s never been possible.
Nice video. Cool little glitch…wonder how long until it’s patched.
Works on my iPhone 5. Hope they don’t patch it before I get my iPhone 6 Plus next week!
This will break when they fix the bug if they fix it. And the folders or apps will revert back out.
This really isn’t relative to this post but can you tell me if the iPhone 6 and 6+ have 5 point or 10 point multitouch screens? Also what about the iPhone 5/s/c?
Reading this post got me interested as I have a lot of clutter on my iPhone, which certainly could benefit from nesting into sub-folders.
I found it fiddly on the phone, so I wondered: “does this work on the apps tab of the sync module in iTunes?” – the good news is that it does and it’s actually very easy. You’ll see folders listed under the pages. It works if you open a page and then drag a folder from that page down onto the relevant folder tab below the pages into which you would like to nest it. Just drop it in and it produces the folder / sub-folder structure described in this post. The sub-folders are still listed, so you can nest sub-folders within sub-folders, as described in your article.
Maybe it worked with iOS7; I didn’t try it before. It certainly works now!
Zooming into folder after folder like that is pretty trippy!
This is pretty cool tho, and FWIW, I’ve had folders on my dock since iOS 7 day one.
this “folder onto folder” already exist on iOS7 so it’s not a bug of iOS8, Apple knew already that “bug” but they didn’t fix it.
Can’t add any apps to the nested folder, though, after it is created. Bummer.
It is a bummer. Ios 5 (was it that long ago?) where it was possible to add apps to the subfolder after it was created, and was also possible to create more than one subfolder, was very cool.
At least subfolders persist through software updates and restores – even those creates while jailbroken.
Wonder when apple will just allow us to create subfoldes.
Can you do it on an iPad? IOS 8 on iPad doesn’t let you see any other folders.
I try to do this but whenever I add a app the folder doesn’t zoom in… how do I get it to zoom? please help thanks!