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How to Add and Remove Homescreens on the Nexus 5

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Now that Google’s brand new Nexus 5 smartphone is making its way to consumers around the globe, not to mention being available in the US from Sprint and soon T-Mobile, many of you new owners may have a few questions.

For those who’ve just received their shiny new LG Nexus 5 running Android 4.4 KitKat and would like to know how to add additional homescreens beyond the standard Google Now, and first screen available out of the box, we have a quick how to video below. While extremely similar, it isn’t the exact same as other Nexus devices on Android 4.4 KitKat, but it’s close. Here’s how to add more screens.

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With the Nexus 5 and KitKat Google delivered an exclusive experience with what many are calling the Google Now (or Google experience) launcher. Google Now is deeper integrated then ever before, and actually attached to the launcher with a quick swipe to the left most homescreen. Out of the box the Nexus 5 has Google Now on the far left, then a second homescreen (main) showing the Google Search bar and a few applications such as the Play Store.

Add and Remove Screens

Many users will have to re-design their homescreen approach, especially if you’ve used that left side homescreen for certain applications in the past. Everyone is different on how they set up their smartphones, but for those who want more screens here’s how to simply add, and remove them from the Nexus 5.

It’s extremely simple, and something most seasoned Android users should be plenty familiar with by now. Unlike other forked versions of Android, or iOS, you can add or remove as many screens as you’d like. With the Nexus 5 it’s a simple slide of an icon away. Grab any icon from your homescreen or app tray, tap and hold, and slide it to the right edge of the device. You’ll notice the home launcher instantly create a 3rd screen. Then you can do the same tap and drag to fill it with as many apps and widgets as you’d like.

Screen Shot 2013-11-13 at 12.09.44 PM

The image above is a visual indicator of how many homescreens you have at any given time on your Nexus 5, and which screen the user is currently on. You’ll find this on the bottom of the display just above the app dock. You’ll notice more dots appear and disappear as you add or remove more homescreens. That’s it, you’re all done.

Rearrange Screens

Once you’ve added a few different screens to your Nexus 5, you may want to rearrange these at any given time. Rather than just deleting an entire page of icons and starting over, as expected we can arrange them with ease. Oddly Google didn’t add a way to trash an entire homescreen, but at least we can rearrange them.

Screenshot_2013-11-13-11-56-06

Tap and hold on a blank area of the homescreen and you’ll find the option shown above. This is where we add widgets, change the wallpaper, or another way to get to settings. From here you’ll see your homescreens with a frosted white box around them. Simply tap and hold again to move any specific homescreen wherever you’d like. Again, we can’t delete it from here, but you can change the order.

It’s all that easy. Enjoy!

11 Comments

11 Comments

  1. karthik nayak

    11/13/2013 at 11:41 pm

    thanks :)

  2. bibby

    11/27/2013 at 7:15 am

    But how do I create a blank home screen? I like to keep my home screen empty and have another screen to the right with all my apps in it but Android keeps automatically deleting any blank home screens. It’s very frustrating!

  3. Jim

    12/02/2013 at 6:16 am

    I *hate* this new method to add a new Home Screen!! It’s far too difficult, and not intuitive. No-one is gonna figure it out. People have to search online just to figure out how to do this basic thing, which was much easier on the previous Android versions.

  4. miss_n

    01/11/2014 at 8:16 pm

    I am having the exact same issue! I like having a blank homescreen. KitKat keeps auto deleting it. Its really annoying.

  5. Sergeant Baker

    02/11/2014 at 12:40 pm

    Really really thx ur a damn hero

  6. Cindy

    04/10/2014 at 10:24 am

    Tapping and holding a blank area brings up wallpapers not the above screen. Guess I’m too dense.

  7. HM

    06/23/2014 at 7:13 pm

    Have the same bloody problem. Nexus 7, long press on the home screen gives me wallpaper selection, I have 5 screens all blank, no way to remove them

  8. Chase

    07/01/2014 at 11:25 am

    Not sure if it will help anyone, but…
    – If you want an empty screen, create one with directions above and then MOVE (don’t delete) all of the icons that existed on it.
    – If you want to delete an empty screen, add an icon to it and THEN delete that icon (don’t move it to another screen).

    Took me a bit to figure it out.

  9. iheb

    07/09/2014 at 7:44 am

    Thanks a ton to the user “Chase”. Your method worked great and was just what I was looking for.

  10. Chad Olson

    07/14/2014 at 7:14 pm

    Is there any way to have a blank screen.

  11. Ray Nonhof

    08/01/2016 at 7:10 am

    Thanks, very helpful :)

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