Last Updated on May 30, 2021 by Mathew Diekhake

The Play Store is a hub for all the apps for your Android device as that is where you can download and install new apps on your device. The Play Store app handles all the app downloads and installations for you on your device. It shows what apps you have installed on your device and also lets you add new apps to the device.

One of the things that the Play Store does, which I do not find very useful, is that it adds the icons of the newly installed apps to the homescreen. If you are like me who installs many apps on his phone, you will find your homescreen getting filled-up with new icons very quickly.

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The home screen is supposed to have only those apps that you use the most. If all the new apps are going to be placed there, it will make it difficult for you to reach out to your favorite apps which you have intentionally placed on the home screen.

One of the ways to prevent that is to remove the app icon from the home screen. While that’s a good idea, the next time you install a new app, its icon will be added to the home screen, and then it will become a cumbersome task to remove the icon for each of the apps you install on your device.

Fortunately, the Play Store app offers an option that lets you disable the feature that adds new apps’ icons to your home screen. When the option has been disabled, no new icons will be added to your home screen.

Here’s how to do that:

Stopping Play Store from Adding New App Icons to the Home screen on an Android Device

Open the App Drawer on your Android device and tap on “Play Store.” It opens the Google Play Store from where you can manage all the settings related to the Play Store app on your device. These settings include the option for adding new app icons to the home screen.

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When the Play Store app launches, tap on the hamburger icon in the top-left corner of the screen, and it expands the app menu for you. The hamburger icon is actually three horizontal lines appearing in the top-left corner of your screen.

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When the app menu expands, scroll down, and you will find an option saying “Settings.” Tap on it to open the settings panel from where you can adjust settings for the Play Store on your device.

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On the following screen, you will find an option that says “Add icon to Home screen.” This option is what controls whether new app icons should be added to the home screen or not.

The option should be enabled by default.

What you need to do here is untick the box next to the option by tapping it, and the option will be disabled.

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By unticking the box, you have disabled the option meaning the Play Store will no longer add new apps’ icons to the home screens of your device.

Icons of any new apps you install from the Play Store will no longer be added to your home screen. However, you should find those apps in your device’s App Drawer.

So, that was how you could stop Play Store from adding new app icons to the home screen of your Android device.

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