How to add web page shortcut icons to your iPhone’s Home Screen

Updated November 1st, 2022.

You can add shortcut icons for web pages to your iPhone’s Home Screen. They look just like app icons, and when you tap them, they take you to a web page. Do this for the web pages you visit the most and you’ll save a ton of time.

It’s easy as 1-2-3. Here’s how you do it.

Start by going to the website in question. Here’s one I like a lot.

Webpage shown in Safari on an iPhone in iOS 14
Here’s a web page you might want a shortcut for

The magic is hidden behind the Share button, at the bottom of the screen on an iPhone, so tap that. (On an iPad it’s at the top right of the screen.)

Share button in Safari on iOS 14
The Share button

You get the standard sharing options: shortcuts for send a link to the page to people you’ve shared a lot of items with, and buttons to share via Mail, Messages, etc. There’s nothing about “Add a shortcut to the Home Screen.”

It doesn’t look like we’re in the right place, does it. (Spoiler alert: we are in the right place.)

Standard Sharing options, after tapping the Share button in Safari in iOS 14.
Standard Sharing options in the iOS 13 Share sheet

Here’s the trick: you need to scroll down. Push the Share sheet up so you can see what’s below. When you do that, you see this:

Share sheet in Safari showing "Add to Home Screen" in iOS 14
Share sheet in Safari showing “Add to Home Screen”

There it is: “Add to Home Screen.” Tap that.

Now you see this:

Adding a web page shortcut icon to the Home Screen in iOS 14
Adding a web page shortcut icon to the Home Screen

From here, all you do is tap “Add” at top right and voilá! The icon appears on your Home Screen.

You might have to scroll through a few of your Home Screens before you find the icon but it will be there somewhere. You can move it later, just like any other icon on your iPhone.

Here’s how it looks:

Web page shortcut icon added to iPhone Home Screen in iOS 14
Web page shortcut icon added to iPhone Home Screen

Technically you’re done, but in this case the name of the website is too long to fit under the icon properly. It’s just cosmetic but let’s fix it. You can’t change the name after making the icon– you have to do before you tap “Add.”

So let’s do it again.

Go back to the web page (you can tap your shortcut to do it). Tap the Share button. Scroll down. Tap “Add to Home Screen.” This time, edit the name that you’d like to see under the icon.

Adding a web page icon to the Home Screen and editing the name of it first in iOS 14
Adding a web page icon to the Home Screen and editing the name of it first

Here I’ve renamed the overly-long “Mac and iPhone training and troubleshooting for individuals and businesses” to “cboyce.”

When you’re done editing, tap “Add” and you’ll see a new icon with the new name.

Two versions of the Shortcut icon: one with the default name, one with an edited name in iOS 14
Two versions of the Shortcut icon: one with the default name, one with an edited name

I left the original icon on the Home Screen so we could compare them side by side, and now that we see that the second one is much better, let’s remove the first one. We do this by tapping and holding on the icon we want to get rid of.

Deleting a bookmark (Shortcut) from the Home Screen in iOS 14
Deleting a bookmark (Shortcut) from the Home Screen

Tap “Delete Bookmark” and you’re done. Well, almost done: you still have to confirm that you want to delete the shortcut.

Confirming that we want to delete the Bookmark Shortcut in iOS 14
Confirming that we want to delete the Bookmark Shortcut

Now you’re done.

There's your Shortcut, ready to be tapped!
There’s your Shortcut, ready to be tapped!

From now on, you’re one tap away from visiting that favorite site.

I have icons for a handful of sites on my iPhone and they save me gobs of time. Take a minute now to set up a few of these and start saving time today!

Copyright 2008-2024 Christian Boyce. All rights reserved.

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Christian Boyce

Christian Boyce is a Mac and iPhone expert with over 30 years' experience in the field. His specialty is teaching people how to get more out of their Macs and iPhones using the software and apps already installed. He is the author of several books, a guest speaker for Mac and iPhone user groups worldwide, and a former rocket scientist. He splits time between homes in Santa Monica, California and Round Rock, Texas.

10 thoughts on “How to add web page shortcut icons to your iPhone’s Home Screen

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  1. Thanks for the reply. I just see Edit Home Screen and Share Bookmark options, no Delete though. Some people have suggested there may be a setting somewhere determining whether the Delete option is available or not, but I can’t find anything obvious

    1. Any chance that your iPhone has a “profile” (Settings/General/Profiles and Device Management)? You might, if you have an email account from a school or from work. Have a look and see.

  2. Hi Christian. I think I’ve sorted it out. It was because in Settings/Screen Time, I had Content & Privacy Restrictions turned on. Even though every option in there was set to Allow, it was still blocking the deletion of web links on the Home Screen for some reason. After turning the restriction setting off, the delete option appeared when long pressing the web link, and I’ve finally managed to remove the link. Thanks very much for your help – much appreciated!

    1. The closest thing I can think of (so far) is you “share” the link to the website via email or text message to the other person, and the other person “shares” it and creates a web page shortcut icon on his own screen. There’s no way to install something onto someone else’s iPhone screen– they have to initiate that.

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