Your iPhone’s Lock Screen is the first thing you see dozens of times a day — and since iOS 16, it’s been one of the most customizable parts of the entire phone. Apple completely reimagined the Lock Screen with iOS 16, and every version since (including iOS 17 and later) has built on that foundation with more fonts, more widgets, depth effects, and Focus-linked screens that change automatically throughout your day.
If you’ve never gone beyond the default Lock Screen your iPhone came with, you’re missing out. In a few minutes you can build a Lock Screen that shows your next calendar event at a glance, matches your wallpaper to your mood, switches automatically when you start work, and looks genuinely stunning with Apple’s depth effect. And you can keep several different Lock Screens and swipe between them whenever you like.
This guide covers everything: how to enter edit mode with a long press, adding and switching wallpapers, customizing fonts and clock colors, adding widgets, linking Lock Screens to Focus modes, using Live Photo wallpapers, the depth effect, and managing multiple Lock Screens. Let’s make your Lock Screen yours.
What You Need Before You Start
- An iPhone running iOS 16 or later. The customizable Lock Screen launched with iOS 16, and this guide covers iOS 17 and newer, where the feature set is complete and refined. To check your version, go to Settings → General → About and look at the iOS Version. If you’re on iOS 15 or earlier, update first (Settings → General → Software Update).
- Face ID or Touch ID set up (recommended). Editing the Lock Screen requires your phone to be unlocked first — you’ll long-press the Lock Screen after unlocking with Face ID/Touch ID but before swiping up to the Home Screen.
- Photos you like. Your own photos make the best Lock Screen wallpapers. Have a few favorites in mind — portraits work especially well with the depth effect.
- A few minutes to experiment. Nothing here is permanent, and you can undo or delete any Lock Screen in seconds. Play around freely.
Step 1: Enter Lock Screen Edit Mode with a Long Press
Everything starts here. Apple hid the Lock Screen editor behind a gesture rather than a Settings page, so many people never find it:
- Lock your iPhone (press the side button), then wake the screen (tap it or press the side button again).
- Unlock with Face ID — glance at the phone so the lock icon opens — but do not swipe up to the Home Screen. Stay on the Lock Screen.
- Long-press anywhere on the Lock Screen (press and hold for a second or two).
- The screen zooms out and shows your current Lock Screen as a card, with a + (Add) button at the bottom and a Customize button beneath the active screen.
You’re now in the Lock Screen gallery. From here you can swipe left and right through your existing Lock Screens, tap + to create a new one, or tap Customize on the current one to edit it. If the long press doesn’t work, make sure you’ve actually unlocked with Face ID first — the editor won’t open from a fully locked state.
Alternative route: you can also reach Lock Screen settings via Settings → Wallpaper, which shows your Lock Screen and Home Screen pair. But the long-press method is faster and is how Apple intends you to do it day to day.
Step 2: Add a New Lock Screen Wallpaper
Let’s create a fresh Lock Screen from scratch:
- Long-press the Lock Screen to enter the gallery, then tap the + (Add New) button.
- You’ll see the wallpaper picker with categories at the top: Photos, People, Photo Shuffle, Live Photo, Emoji, Weather, Astronomy, Color, and featured collections.
- Tap Photos to browse your library, or pick a category:
- Photos / People: your own pictures. The People category surfaces portraits Apple thinks will look good.
- Photo Shuffle: automatically rotates through a set of photos on a schedule you choose (daily, hourly, on wake, or on tap).
- Emoji: build a patterned wallpaper from emoji you pick — fun and surprisingly stylish.
- Weather: a live wallpaper showing current conditions with animations for rain, clouds, and sun.
- Astronomy: gorgeous views of Earth, the Moon, or the solar system that update with your real location.
- Color: simple gradient backgrounds in any color.
- Select your image. You can pinch to zoom and drag to frame it exactly how you want.
- Swipe left and right to preview filters (Natural, Black & White, Duotone, Color Wash) applied to the photo.
- Tap Add in the top-right corner when you’re happy.
- Choose Set as Wallpaper Pair (uses a blurred/color-matched version for your Home Screen too) or Customize Home Screen to set the Home Screen separately.
Photo Shuffle deserves a special mention: if you can never decide on one wallpaper, let the phone decide for you. Pick a category of photos (Favorites, People, Nature, etc.), choose how often to shuffle, and every time you wake your phone there’s a fresh Lock Screen waiting. It’s the set-and-forget option for the indecisive.
Step 3: Customize the Clock — Fonts, Colors, and Styles
The clock is the centerpiece of your Lock Screen, and you have real control over how it looks:
- On the Lock Screen you’re editing, tap the clock.
- A font and color picker appears. Swipe through the font options — Apple offers several weights and styles, from thin and elegant to bold and chunky.
- Tap a color swatch to recolor the clock, or drag the color picker for a custom shade. There’s also a slider to adjust the color’s intensity.
- You can also switch between Arabic and Devanagari numerals in some regions via the globe icon.
- Tap outside the picker or tap Done to apply.
Design tips: thin fonts look refined over busy photos; bold fonts pop over simple backgrounds. White or light colors work over dark photos and vice versa. If your photo has the subject’s face near the top, consider the depth effect (Step 7) instead of fighting the clock placement — let the photo overlap the clock rather than moving things around.
Step 4: Add Widgets to Your Lock Screen
Widgets turn your Lock Screen from decoration into a dashboard. You get two widget areas:
Widgets below the clock
- While editing the Lock Screen, tap the Add Widgets frame below the clock.
- A widget picker slides up showing available widgets from Apple’s apps and third-party apps you’ve installed.
- Tap widgets to add them — you can fit up to four small widgets, or mix small and wide ones (a wide widget takes two slots).
- Drag to reorder them, tap the minus button on a widget to remove it.
- Tap Done when finished.
Widgets worth trying: Calendar (upcoming event), Weather (conditions + temperature), Reminders (next task), Activity rings (fitness), Batteries (device charge levels), and Clock (world clocks). Third-party apps — from task managers to flight trackers — increasingly offer Lock Screen widgets too.
The widget above the clock (date area)
Don’t forget the slim strip where the date normally sits — tapping it lets you swap the date for a single inline widget, like your next alarm, activity summary, or a world clock. It’s small but surprisingly useful.
Step 5: Link Lock Screens to Focus Modes
This is the power-user feature that makes multiple Lock Screens genuinely useful. Focus modes (Do Not Disturb, Work, Sleep, Personal, and custom ones) can each have their own Lock Screen — and Home Screen — that activate automatically:
- Long-press the Lock Screen, swipe to the Lock Screen you want to link, and tap Focus at the bottom of its card.
- Select the Focus mode to link (e.g., Work).
- Now whenever that Focus activates — manually or on a schedule — this Lock Screen appears automatically.
Practical setups people love:
- Work Focus: a calm, minimal Lock Screen with Calendar and Reminders widgets front and center, and notifications silenced except for work contacts.
- Sleep Focus: a dark, dim wallpaper with no tempting widgets — just the clock — that activates on your sleep schedule.
- Personal/Weekend Focus: a fun photo with music and activity widgets.
- Do Not Disturb: a plain wallpaper that signals “unavailable” at a glance.
To manage the automation side, go to Settings → Focus, tap a Focus mode, and set schedules or location triggers under Turn on Automatically. Your linked Lock Screen will follow along.
Step 6: Use Live Photo Wallpapers
Live Photos — the ones that capture a few seconds of motion — make for Lock Screens that feel alive. Touch and hold the Lock Screen and the photo animates:
- Long-press the Lock Screen and tap + to add a new one.
- Choose the Live Photo category (or pick a Live Photo from your Photos library — they show a small “LIVE” badge).
- Frame the photo with pinch and drag as usual.
- Tap Add, then set it as your wallpaper pair or customize the Home Screen separately.
- On the Lock Screen, press and hold to play the Live Photo animation.
Tips for great Live Photo wallpapers: choose Live Photos with clear motion — waves, hair in the wind, a pet mid-pounce. Still-looking Live Photos won’t impress anyone. Also note that the animation only plays when you press and hold; the rest of the time it shows a still frame, so make sure the still looks good on its own.
One caveat: Live Photo wallpapers use a bit more battery than static ones, since the phone renders the animation on demand. The impact is small, but if you’re squeezing every percent out of your battery, static wallpapers are the leaner choice.
Step 7: Turn On the Depth Effect
The depth effect is the single most striking Lock Screen feature: it layers the clock behind the subject of your photo, so a person’s head or a building appears to pop out in front of the time. It looks like a magazine cover:
- While editing a Lock Screen with a photo wallpaper, tap the three-dot menu (bottom-right of the editing screen).
- Toggle Depth Effect on.
- The clock slides behind the foreground subject of your photo. Drag the photo slightly to fine-tune the overlap.
When depth effect works best: photos with a clear, distinct subject against a simpler background — a portrait against the sky, a person standing in front of a wall, a building against clouds. The AI needs to cleanly separate subject from background.
When it won’t work: if your photo’s subject fills the whole frame, blends into a busy background, or sits too low in the frame, the effect may be grayed out or look wrong. Not every photo qualifies — that’s normal. Also note that widgets below the clock disable the depth effect in some configurations, because the layered layout conflicts with widget placement. If the toggle is grayed out, try removing the lower widgets first.
Step 8: Create, Switch, and Delete Multiple Lock Screens
You’re not limited to one Lock Screen — keep a whole collection and switch in seconds:
Switching between Lock Screens
- Long-press the Lock Screen to open the gallery.
- Swipe left or right through your Lock Screen cards.
- Tap the one you want — it becomes active immediately.
Deleting a Lock Screen
- Long-press the Lock Screen to open the gallery.
- Swipe to the Lock Screen you want to remove.
- Swipe up on the card and tap the trash icon, then confirm Delete This Wallpaper.
Deleting a Lock Screen doesn’t delete the photo from your library — it only removes that Lock Screen configuration. Your pictures are safe.
Editing an existing Lock Screen
Swipe to any Lock Screen in the gallery and tap Customize beneath it. You can change its wallpaper, clock, widgets, and filters without rebuilding it from scratch. This is the fastest way to refresh a Lock Screen that’s gotten stale — swap the photo, keep the widgets.
Troubleshooting / Common Problems
Long-press doesn’t open the editor
The most common cause: you haven’t unlocked with Face ID/Touch ID first. Fix: wake the phone, let Face ID unlock it (the lock icon opens), then long-press without swiping up. Also check that a case or screen protector isn’t interfering with the touch gesture — press firmly for a full second.
Depth Effect toggle is grayed out
Fix: this happens when (a) the photo has no clearly separable subject, (b) widgets are placed below the clock, or (c) the subject is positioned where the clock can’t layer behind it. Try a different photo with a distinct subject against a clean background, remove lower widgets, and reposition the photo so the subject’s top is near the clock.
Widgets aren’t showing live data
A weather widget stuck on old data or a calendar widget showing nothing. Fix: open the corresponding app once to refresh its data, check that the app has permission to run in the background (Settings → General → Background App Refresh), and make sure you’re signed into the relevant account (e.g., your calendar account in the Calendar app).
Live Photo wallpaper doesn’t animate
Fix: make sure you’re pressing and holding — a quick tap won’t trigger it. Also confirm the wallpaper is actually a Live Photo (check for the LIVE badge when selecting it). If it still won’t play, try re-adding the wallpaper; occasionally the Live component doesn’t attach properly on the first attempt.
Focus-linked Lock Screen doesn’t switch automatically
Fix: verify two things: the link itself (long-press Lock Screen → the card should show the Focus name at the bottom) and the Focus automation (Settings → Focus → [mode] → Turn on Automatically). If the schedule or trigger isn’t set, the Focus never activates and the Lock Screen never switches.
Wallpaper looks zoomed-in or blurry
Fix: when framing the photo, don’t zoom in more than necessary — cropping magnifies and softens the image. Use the highest-resolution version of the photo (check it’s not a thumbnail synced at low quality), and avoid screenshots as wallpapers when possible since they’re lower resolution than camera photos.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use different wallpapers for the Lock Screen and Home Screen?
Yes. When you tap Add on a new Lock Screen, choose Customize Home Screen instead of Set as Wallpaper Pair. You can then pick a separate photo, a solid color, or a gradient for the Home Screen independently.
How many Lock Screens can I have?
Apple doesn’t publish a hard limit, and in practice you can keep quite a collection — dozens if you like. That said, a curated set of three to five (say: daily, work, sleep, weekend) is more useful than thirty you’ll never swipe through.
Do Lock Screen widgets drain the battery?
Minimally. Lock Screen widgets update on a throttled schedule specifically designed to sip battery, not gulp it. If you’re chasing maximum battery life, a wallpaper-only Lock Screen with no widgets is technically leaner — but for most people the difference is negligible.
Can third-party apps provide Lock Screen widgets?
Yes — any app updated with Lock Screen widget support can offer them, and they appear in the same Add Widgets picker. If your favorite app doesn’t offer one, check the App Store for an update or contact the developer; it’s up to each app maker to build one.
Will my Lock Screen customizations transfer to a new iPhone?
Yes, when you restore from an iCloud or computer backup, your Lock Screens come along. Focus links transfer too, as long as the same Focus modes exist on the new device.
Why can’t I move the clock to a different position?
Apple fixes the clock position — you can change its font, color, and size (within limits), but not drag it elsewhere on the screen. The depth effect and photo framing are Apple’s answer: instead of moving the clock, you arrange the photo around it.
Does customizing the Lock Screen affect notifications?
No — notification settings are separate. But note that iOS offers notification display styles on the Lock Screen (Settings → Notifications → Display As: Count, Stack, or List) that change how alerts stack up beneath your widgets. Worth a look once your new Lock Screen is in place.
Wrapping Up
And that’s the full tour — from the long-press that opens the editor, through wallpapers, fonts, widgets, Focus links, Live Photos, and the depth effect, to managing a whole gallery of Lock Screens. The beauty of this system is that none of it is permanent: try a bold new look on Monday, switch back on Tuesday, link a calm one to your Work Focus, and let Photo Shuffle surprise you on the weekend.
My suggestion? Start with one great photo, one useful widget (Calendar is the crowd favorite for a reason), and a clock style that makes you smile. Live with it for a day, then tweak. Your Lock Screen is the thing you look at most on your phone — it deserves to be exactly how you want it. Have fun with it! 🙂
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