Can't add apps to the dock

Me too - this is on iPad, not iPhone - but same OS version. I'm wondering if a recent update broke something. I've tried every combination of touch-swipe-drag and the icon always snaps back, despite only having one icon in the dock.

Hi, just ran into this issue, and wanted to add that it was particularly annoying because while I couldn't add an app to a 3 item dock, I inadvertently added my app to another app in the dock (Safari) and created a folder in the dock. Then I was able to remove the newly added app from the folder in dock, and ended up with Safari inside a folder in the dock. Anyhoo...

I noticed that I had a lot of apps installed. Like 14 pages full of apps. So I started nuking them, just app after useless app. Deleted all of the apps I really didn't need. 4 or 5 airlines that I flew one time and never again... nuked. Some useless games my kids installed... gone. Anyway, after the great app purge, everything worked perfectly again. No issues whatsoever. So... if you have a lot of apps installed, try deleting them (in my case I deleted them, but I'm not sure if removing them might do the trick as well). Seems like there may be a limit on the number of apps that appear on the Home Screen before problems start happening.

This latest round of releases for iOS iPadOS and macOS have all had major issues for me for basic functionality, what is going on with apple test and QA? It really has changed, I used to know that I wouldn't need to spend hours on recovery when doing an update with apple products.

So I moved an item out of my dock to make room, I now have 3 apps in the dock and I can not get any other app to add to the dock to bring back up to 4. I find that needing to delete apps is a BS answer. I am a SW engineer so I get that this is a workaround that must cause an update somewhere that is causing the bug, that makes sense it happens, but to require this of customers is stupid. I have always justified in my mind paying high prices for apple because they just work, I can no longer do that with all of the issues I have had with my iPhone 15 pro along with I spent over 2 hours recovering from upgrading to Sonoma on my MacBook M2. It would no recognize my password and locked my account out and really got me scared, after 2 hours I finally found a way based on what others had posted. So, any updates other than deleting apps randomly and praying it fixes my iPhone? Apple, do you care?

What a waste of time. I’m having this issue and I come here to look for a solution and this is your response to the problem. The question wasn’t why can’t I add another app to the dock. She clearly described that when she tries to move the app it won’t let her. It’s clear to just about every iPhone user that you can only have 4 apps on the dock at any given time. If you are not gonna provide real solutions you shouldn’t be responding to any tech issues that are going on with people.

".... toggle showing App Library, Suggestions and Recent in the dock".... sorry but where EXACTLY are you finding this string of commands?

Interesting - after fussing with it for quite a while, my solution was to toggle showing App Library, Suggestions and Recent in the dock, and leave them all off. Then I was able to drag the icons in as normal. After that, I re-enabled the above categories. I suspect that what you and I did is related somehow...i.e. they reset the state. Maybe these will help someone else!

I just did that and now have every app I've ever downloaded again showing up in about 20 pages of apps, losing all my arrangements and folders and STILL the dock won't "accept" a 4th app icon! Apple fan boy but even with latest software and a 15maxpro, maybe I'm missing something! Cheers

This was giving me a headache. Very annoying issue! Any app that I tried to move to the home dock area was returning to the previous location.

The only solution for me: enable Zoom. Just go to Settings > Accessibility > Zoom > enable Zoom.

It worked perfectly! I can move any app down there now.

You can disable Zoom later.

Thanks Chris. I think you are on to something. I have a ton of apps also. I also started deleting some and randomly a few days later was able to add to the dock. I didn’t connect the two. Thanks.

Same problem. I accidentally dumped my phone app from the dock to a folder. It took me a few minutes to find it. After some very tedious minutes I logged on.

I tried pulling the phone app out of the folder and into messages app in the dock. It stuck. While still edit mode I opened the new “messages” folder and drug the phone app back to its original position in the dock and it stayed. Good Luck to you all, especially those with empty doc. Thanks for the well written reponses

I had the same problem on my new iPad. My Home Screen was filled with app icons, 15 pages (apparently the limit because more app icons were not yet visible).

I had to edit Home Screen, remove many apps, until more app icons stopped appearing. After that moving an app to the dock worked properly again.

You must move an app off the dock to make room for the app you want to add to it.

And your iPhone should be updated to 17.1.1.

Did you figure it out. I have same issue.

I “fixed” it by doing reset Home Screen

I just upgraded my Iphone to OS 17 and am also having the same problem. I'd rather not reset my home screen, does anyone else have a work around for not being able to add to the dock?