How to Customize Siri Suggestions and Widgets on the Widget Screen

By Sarah Kingsbury Tue, 06/27/2017
How to Customize Siri Suggestions in Spotlight

Need iPad and iPhone help? Sign up for iPhone Life Insider and I’ll help you with all of your iPhone troubleshooting and iOS-related issues. Here’s a question from an Insider who wants to know how to customize the Siri suggestions that show up on his Spotlight page (also known as the Widget screen), which is a combination of widgets and siri recommendations:

Related: My Mail App Has Disappeared from My iPhone. How Do I Get It Back?

Hey Sarah,

Both my iPhone and my iPad generate pages that show up to the left when I have scrolled all the other Home pages that show app icons. They show Siri suggestions, people's names and pictures (head shots) in circles, app recommendations (most frequently used), and a third row for "Nearby" restaurants, coffee, shopping, gas. How can I control what appears on this page? Some I do not want to be there, others I want to have included for my convenience. I have not been able to find the way to choose the contents.

Sincerely,

In the Spotlight

Hi Spotlight,

This page is the new beefed up Siri recommendations that Apple Introduced with iOS 9 and combined with the Widgets page with iOS 10. To customize the Siri recommendations and Widgets that appear on this page, scroll down to the bottom of the Widgets screen and tap Edit. In the resulting list, the top results are the widgets that are enabled to appear on your Widget screen. The bottom list are the ones not currently enabled. You can tap the red circle to the left of the widget name and then tap Remove to delete the widget from the page.  To add more widgets, tap the green circle next to any widgets you want in the bottom part of the list. You can further customize the enabled widgets by long pressing on the three horizontal bars to the right of the enabled widgets and dragging them into the order you prefer. Once you have customized your widgets, tap Done to see the updated Widget screen.
 
If you further want to customize the Siri Spotlight search results you get when you type in the search bar at the top of the Widget screen, go to Settings > General > Spotlight Search. Here you can get rid of all the results by toggling Siri Suggestions off. Or under Search Results you can customize what you see. 
  • Toggle off any apps whose content you don't want to search or see in your app recommendations
  • Toggle off Contacts if you don't want to see any contact suggestions
  • Toggle off Maps if you don't want to see any nearby location suggestions
  • Toggle of Spotlight Suggestions if you don't want to see any News suggestions.
I hope this is helpful in customizing your Widget screen and Spotlight Search page!
Best,
Sarah
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Author Details

Sarah Kingsbury

As the Editorial Director at iPhone Life, Sarah Kingsbury manages the online editorial team and oversees all website content. She is a long-time Apple enthusiast who never goes anywhere without her Apple Watch and owns way too many HomePods. Since joining iPhone Life in 2013, Sarah has done everything from writing hundreds of how-to articles to founding the Daily Tip newsletter. She even co-hosted the early episodes of the iPhone Life Podcast. When not at work, Sarah can be found hiking in the mountains and canyons around Las Vegas, where she lives with her partner and dogs.