The Control Center on your Apple Watch is designed to give you instant access to the settings you use most often, like turning on the flashlight, pinging a misplaced iPhone, or enabling Do Not Disturb before a meeting. You access it by simply pressing the side button (on watchOS 10 and newer) or swiping up from the bottom of the screen (on watchOS 9 and older).
However, by default, Apple populates this menu with a wide array of icons, many of which you may never use. If you find yourself constantly scrolling past the Walkie-Talkie icon or the Water Lock feature just to find your battery percentage, it is time to customise the layout. You can easily remove icons you do not need and rearrange the remaining ones so your most critical tools are always at the very top.
Rearranging and Removing Icons
Unlike many Apple Watch settings that require you to use the Watch app on your iPhone, customising the Control Center must be done directly on the watch face itself.
- Wake your Apple Watch screen.
- Open the Control Center. (If you are using watchOS 10 or later, press the flat oval side button once. If you are using watchOS 9 or earlier, swipe up from the very bottom edge of your watch face).
- Use your finger or the Digital Crown to scroll all the way to the very bottom of the Control Center menu.
- Tap the button labelled Edit.
- The icons will begin to jiggle, indicating you are in editing mode.
- To move an icon, tap and hold your finger on it, drag it to your preferred location (like moving the Ping iPhone button to the very top row), and let go.
- To remove an icon you do not use, tap the small red minus (–) symbol in the top left corner of that specific icon. It will immediately disappear from the active grid.
Adding Removed Icons Back
If you remove an icon and later realise you actually need it (for example, if you start swimming and need the Water Lock feature back), you can easily restore it to your active menu.
- Open the Control Center and scroll to the bottom.
- Tap Edit.
- Scroll down past the jiggling active icons. You will see a new section titled More.
- This section contains every icon you have previously removed. Tap the green plus (+) symbol next to any icon to immediately add it back to your active Control Center grid.
- Once you are satisfied with your layout, press the Digital Crown once, or tap Done at the bottom of the screen, to save your changes and exit editing mode.