How To Make Your iPhone Icons Round

Tech tricks are always fun, but they're even more fun when they're actually kind of secret. Take, for example, this neat little hack that allows you to change your iPhone icons into circles instead of squares on your home screen — which YouTuber videosdebarraquito figured out and was kind enough to share with the rest of us. Is it a major game-changer? Of course not — they're just icon shapes, after all — but it's still pretty cool. So how does it even work? Well, let's take a look.

The good news about this trick is that it's very easy and doesn't require any advanced understanding of code, or really any tech know-how whatsoever. Even more importantly, it also doesn't require you to jailbreak your iPhone — a process by which users bypass the safety features Apple puts on their devices. This allows iPhone and iPad users access to apps that Apple hasn't approved, but it also makes you more susceptible to hackers and other security threats. The squares-to-circles trick really does just seem to be a glitch in the software that has the fun side effect of letting you change the shape of your icons.

Before you get too excited, though, know that you can only change the shape of your folders. Individual app icons on your home screen will stay as the traditional rounded square. But if you want a customized look — especially if you use a lot of folders anyway — you might want to give this a try.

Since the YouTube demonstration goes pretty quick, I've put together a step-by-step tutorial of my own based on videosdebarraquito's video.

To start, here we have my pre-altered iPhone home screen, with all potentially embarrassing apps safely hidden away on other pages (I love you, Internet, but you don't need to know everything that's on my phone, OK?).

In order to change those folders from squares to circles, you first have to change your iPhone background using an image that's very small. The example given in the video is only 3x3 pixels, and can be found on this site.

They have a few dozen options to choose from, but I decided to go with blue, both because I like blue and because it's similar to my current iPhone screen. (I fear change in all things.)

To save the color square, hold down on it until you're given the option to save or copy the image. Select "Save." It will now be available in your photos.

Next, go to "Settings" and select "Wallpaper" (if you're running an older version of iOS, it might not be on the main settings page and you could have to hunt for it).

Once there, select "Choose a New Wallpaper."

And then scroll down to where it offers you the option of selecting a new wallpaper from your photos.

Select the square you've downloaded from Weebly, and you'll be directed here...

You want to make sure that it is set to "Perspective," not "Still" as is shown above. Then press "Select." Then when asked, say you want to set this image as the wall paper for your home screen, not your lock screen.

And then, once you're back on the home screen, you should see that your folders have changes from squares to circles. However, it's also worth noting: it seems that, depending on which iPhone you have and which version of iOS you're running, not all of the folders will change.

On my phone, it depends where they are positioned on the home screen. So once I'd first switched them over, this is what they look like:

The "Social Media" and "Entertainment" folders are nice and round, while the "Health" and "Things I Can't Delete" folders have stayed boringly square. But if I move them around, they switch based on how they're positioned. In this configuration, they're all circles:

And in this configuration, they're all square again:

You can play around and see how things work out on your iPhone. It seems that things are slightly different for everyone. Which really just means your phone is even more customized now. Cool, right?

Check out the original video below:

Images: Emma Cueto/Bustle (11)