In iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, Control Center Is Now Highly Customizable

ByEmily Dolloff

Control Center has been a part of our iPhone and iPad experience for over a decade, first appearing in iOS 7 in 2013. It provides direct access to important controls so we don’t have to hunt through Settings or apps. On the whole, it has been a welcome addition.

Although Control Center has changed a bit over the years, it provided relatively minimal customization options until iOS 18 and iPadOS 18. Previously, in Settings > Control Center, you could choose which controls appeared and in what order, though a few essential controls always appeared at the top.

With this year’s operating system updates for the iPhone and iPad, Apple decided to give us nearly free rein to personalize Control Center, even allowing us to add multiple pages of controls. While some people will go wild and utterly reimagine what Control Center can do for them, we expect most to employ more modest tweaks that make it slightly easier to use.

Here’s what you can do in iOS 18 and iPadOS 18:

Learn the basics of getting around in Control Center: 

  • Open Control Center: Swipe down from the upper-right corner of the screen.
  • Move between Control Center pages: During the initial swipe to open Control Center, keep swiping down to navigate to later Control Center pages, represented by tiny icons on the right side of the screen. Once Control Center is open, swipe up or down anywhere on the screen to move between pages or tap the icons.
  • Use controls: Tapping an icon in Control Center usually either toggles a setting (like Orientation Lock and Silent Mode) or opens an app (like Magnifier or Wallet). Many display additional options when you touch and hold them (tap the Focus icon to toggle Do Not Disturb; touch and hold it to access more options, each of which offers even more settings). A few controls allow direct manipulation (like Now Playing, Volume, and Brightness).

Add, organize, and remove items from Control Center:

  • Enter and leave editing mode: Tap the + icon in the upper-left corner, or touch and hold on any empty part of the Control Center screen, much like you enter wiggle mode on the Home Screen. You can swipe between screens in editing mode as well. When you’re done, tap any empty area to leave editing mode.
  • Add a control: In editing mode, tap Add a Control at the bottom of the screen, search or browse for available controls, and tap the one you want to add to the current screen. Note that many apps now provide controls, vastly increasing the actions available from Control Center.
  • Move a control: Touch and hold a control and drag it to the desired location. While holding the control, drag it to the bottom or top of the screen to move it to a different page.
  • Add a new page: When you’re in editing mode, a new empty page always appears at the bottom. To make it stick around after you exit editing mode, add or move a control to it.
  • Resize a control: If a control has a curved resize handle on the lower-right corner of its icon, drag that handle to make the control larger or smaller. Most offer only 1-slot, 2-slot, and 4-slot sizes, with the latter two adding the name—we’re partial to the 2-slot size because we have trouble recognizing little icons. (Control Center would benefit from an option to display names under 1-slot icons as it does on the Add a Control screen.) A few controls, notably Now Playing, are more malleable—it offers two 4-slot sizes, an 8-slot size, a 16-slot size, and a full-page 32-slot size.
  • Delete a control: To remove a control, tap the – button in the upper-left corner of the icon.
  • Reset the layout to the default: It’s easy to go overboard and end up with a mad scientist layout. To return to the default set of controls, go to Settings > Control Center > Reset Control Center.

Take advantage of extra Control Center tips and settings:

  • Check privacy status alerts: In the middle of the screen, you may see one or more small icons and an app name ➊. That indicates the app has permission to do things like track your location, use the camera, or record with the mic. Tap that area to see more details.
  • Power down the device: Touch and hold the power button at the upper-right corner of the screen ➋. It’s similar to holding the physical side button and one of the volume buttons for a few seconds, except the physical buttons also provide sliders for viewing your Medical ID and making an Emergency SOS call. Even if you cancel the power-off action, you must enter your passcode to re-enable FaceID.
  • Turn off Control Center access in apps: If you accidentally invoke Control Center in apps because you want to swipe near the top right of the screen, go to Settings > Control Center and turn off Access Within Apps.

It’s easy to become overwhelmed with Control Center’s customization possibilities. There’s no harm in sticking with the default layout, but our initial advice is to think about what you use Control Center for now and make sure those actions are well-represented by icons on the first page. Also, if you have trouble remembering what particular icons do, resize them to the 2-slot size so you can see their names. Later on, you can look through the full list of available controls and add those that seem appealing.

(Featured image by iStock.com/yacobchuk)

Social Media: The new Control Center in iOS 18 and iPad OS 18 is vastly more customizable and has more options. Our article tells you what’s on offer and how to use it.

Similar Posts

  • My sister and her partner are coming to visit this week so I hope the sun comes out. It has been sort of cool and rainy here for this week. It is hard to believe that we are already in the middle of January and the Iowa caucuses are only a couple of weeks away.

    I know you will join me in congratulating (or consoling) Emily for her most recent promotion. A frequent contributor to Kibbles & Bytes, Emily has done just about every job at Small Dog, starting out in the shipping department way back when, when the computers were heavy. Emily is now the General Manager of Small Dog Electronics to reflect her pivotal role at the company.

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes and for all of the support for Small Dog Electronics. We know it is you, our loyal customers, that sustain us and we appreciate you!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Dean, Scott & Emily_

  • 20 Years of Service.

    !http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4613.jpg!

    Small Dog Electronics has been your local Apple Specialist for 20 years! Not only do we sell the latest Apple products and have some of the most knowledgeable staff around, we offer some of the best *one on one training* and *consulting* services around. Should Santa put something under the tree this year that your just not sure about how you can use it, do not worry, we have got your back and it doesn’t matter where the product came from. Stop into any of our retail stores or give us a call and we will get you getting the most out of your Apple products.

    “!http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4612.jpg!”:http://www.smalldog.com/macthehalls

    Not only do we have great services to help you get the most out of your Apple product, but we have some great deals going on in all of our retail stores *December 9th through the 15th*! Visit any of our retail stores in Rutland, Waitsfield or South Burlington or visit “www.smalldog.com/macthehalls”:http://www.smalldog.com/macthehalls for these deals or more information about what Small Dog services might benefit you.

  • Medgar Evers

    Medgar Evers (1925-1963) was an African-American civil rights activist whose murder drew national attention. Born in Mississippi, he served in World War II before going to work for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). After applying to the segregated University of Mississippi Law School in 1954, he became the NAACP field secretary in Mississippi.

    As early as 1955, Evers activism made him the most visible civil rights leader in the state of Mississippi. As a result, he and his family were subjected to numerous threats and violent actions over the years, including a firebombing of their house in May 1963. At 12:40 a.m. on June 12, 1963, Evers was shot in the back in the driveway of his home in Jackson. He died less than a hour later at a nearby hospital. The accused killer Byron De La Beckwith initially escaped conviction.

    In December 1990, Beckwith was again indicted for the murder of Medgar Evers. After a number of appeals, the Mississippi Supreme Court finally ruled in favor of a third trial in April 1993. Ten months later, testimony began before a racially mixed jury of eight blacks and four whites. In February 1994, nearly 31 years after Evers’ death, Beckwith was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.