Dynamic Island debuted on the iPhone 14 Pro, replacing the static notch with an interactive pill-shaped element that shows app updates and notifications. While many appreciate its functionality, others find it distracting. Want to get rid of it? Keep reading to find out how to hide Dynamic Island on your iPhone.
Good to know: read up on some tips on how to best use Dynamic Island on your iPhone.
Can You Completely Remove Dynamic Island From iPhone Screen?
To begin with, keep in mind that Dynamic Island is only available on certain iPhone models, including:
- iPhone 14 Pro
- iPhone 14 Pro Max
- iPhone 15
- iPhone 15 Plus
- iPhone 15 Pro
- iPhone 15 Pro Max
- iPhone 16
- iPhone 16 Plus
- iPhone 16 Pro
- iPhone 16 Pro Max
If you have an older iPhone model, it means you won’t have access to Dynamic Island.
That said, on models that do support Dynamic Island, there’s no built-in option to completely disable this feature. However, you can use a couple of workarounds to hide the Dynamic Island from view.
Tip: here’s how you can record calls and transcribe them on your iPhone.
Hide Dynamic Island on iPhone by Swiping On It
If you want, let’s say, to take a screenshot of your display, and you don’t want the info shown by the Dynamic Island to be visible, then try this trick. Swipe horizontally to the right or left on your Dynamic Island, while it’s visible on the display.
The content of the Dynamic Island will now be hidden. You can now take your screenshots or simply enjoy a less distracting experience on your phone. If you want to bring Dynamic Island back, simply swipe horizontally again on the notch. The information from the app running in the background will now be visible again.
However, you won’t be able to dismiss all Dynamic Island activities. Some apps like WhatsApp won’t let you swipe away the info in Dynamic Island. For instance, when you’re in a call with someone, swiping on the Dynamic Island will result in a view showing a phone icon as well as a yellow dot – which indicates the microphone is in use. Some system apps also won’t allow you to swipe away their notifications in Dynamic Island.
Tip: if you have an Android device and you’d like to give Dynamic Island a go, check our solution for porting the feature to your phone.
Disable Live Actions for Dynamic Island
This won’t disable Dynamic Island per se, but it will prevent Live Actions from showing up at the top of your screen. Try using the two methods in concert to minimize the presence of Dyanmic Island on your screen.
If you’re not familiar with Live Actions, these is tool meant to display time-sensitive widgets such as the status of your Lyft rideshare or Uber Eats food delivery requests. Note that not all apps have Live Actions integration, so you’ll have to check manually.
To verify whether an app supports Live Actions, open the Settings app and swipe all the way to the bottom until you find Apps and tap on it (if you haven’t updated to iOS 18 yet, you should find the a list featuring all of your apps at the bottom instead.)
Pick an app you often use and know works with Dynamic Island. Tap it.
Find and tap the Live Activities option. If you can’t see one, it means that particular app does not support this function, so there isn’t anything more for you to do.
On the next screen, toggle off the Allow Live Activities option. For good measure, also disable the More Frequent Updates one.
Just to be clear, disabling Live Activities for an app does not mean that you’ve completely blocked all Dynamic Island activities related to the app. No, you will still see app updates at the top of the screen, but time-sensitive alerts won’t be showed anymore.
For example, after turning off Live Activities for WhatsApp I can still see the Dynamic Island showing when I’m engaged in a voice call on the app.
At some point in the future, Apple might implement the option to disable Dynamic Island, but until then you can use these suggestions to make the feature less instrusive on your device.
If you want to continue customizing how your iPhone looks and feels, get up to speed with how to change lock screen shortcuts on your iPhone. Alternatively, read all about giving your iPhone icons a fresh look.
