iOS 26 lets you add widgets from your iPhone apps to your car’s screen when using CarPlay. This handy feature ensures you can quickly glance at important information while driving, thus eliminating the need to open a CarPlay-supported app on your car’s infotainment system or take your eyes off the road to reach for your iPhone.
Add widgets to CarPlay
1) Open the Settings app on your iPhone when you aren’t driving.
2) Tap General > CarPlay, select your car, and tap the new Widgets option.
3) Tap Add Widgets.
4) Select from a list of apps that support widgets, and tap Add Widget. At the bottom, you’ll also see an ‘Other’ option, tapping which will show app widgets that aren’t optimized for CarPlay. You can still add these unoptimized widgets, but they may not work well.
How many widgets can you add to CarPlay?
The number of app widgets you can add to your CarPlay depends on your vehicle’s CarPlay screen. My Renault car has a small 7-inch display, and I’m only allowed to add five widgets to it.
Customize CarPlay widgets
Just like Home Screen iOS widgets, you can customize certain CarPlay app widgets to display the desired data. As an example, you can set the Weather widget to show the conditions of your current location or another city of choice.
To customize a CarPlay app widget, add it to your widgets first, then tap the information icon ⓘ if visible, and select an available option.
Access CarPlay widgets on the car’s screen
Simply swipe across to the left-most page of your CarPlay Home Screen to get to the widgets section and glance at the information there.
Using CarPlay widgets
The entire widget setup on the car’s screen, at least on my car with a small 7-inch display, is super simple (as it should be when driving):
- Just swipe vertically to go through your added widgets.
- Tapping most widgets will open that app.
- Some widgets, like Music and Reminders, are interactive. I can tap the Play/Pause button on the Music widget, and it won’t open the Music app. Similarly, I can mark a task as complete from the Reminders widget without going into the app.
Rearrange CarPlay widgets
Return to iPhone Settings > General > CarPlay > your car > Widgets. Touch and hold the hamburger icon next to an added widget and drag it up or down to change its placement. The widget at the top of your iPhone screen here will appear at the top of your CarPlay widget Dashboard.
Always see only your added widgets; nothing more
If you’ve used the Smart Stack widget on your iPhone, you may already be familiar with the Smart Rotate and Widgets Suggestions features (pictured below).
Coming back to your car, with Smart Rotate enabled, you’ll see relevant widgets in your CarPlay’s widget area throughout the day. And with Widget Suggestions, you may see even those relevant app widgets that you haven’t added manually.
If you don’t want your CarPlay experience to be fluid and like to keep things just the way you set them, turn off Smart Rotate and Widget Suggestions from iOS 26 Settings > General > CarPlay > your car > Widgets.
Opt for a plain black widget background
By default, the added widgets appear on top of your CarPlay wallpaper. If you want a solid black background, turn off Show Wallpaper in iPhone CarPlay Settings.
Note: To change your CarPlay wallpaper, tap Settings on your car’s screen, followed by Wallpaper.
Reset all widgets to default
Tap the Reset button in iPhone CarPlay Settings to restore all default widgets as well as their default placement. The default widget set has:
- Clock
- Calendar
- Weather
- Music
Turn off all CarPlay widgets
If you don’t want to see widgets on your car’s screen and return to pre-iOS 26 setup, you have the option to do that. Turning off the widget is also recommended if your car’s infotainment system is laggy and you find it hard to swipe horizontally through additional pages to find your CarPlay apps.
To remove all iPhone app widgets from your car’s screen, go to iOS 26 Settings > General > CarPlay > your car > Widgets, and turn off Show Widgets.
Important: Even after you turn off CarPlay widgets, you may still see a screen on the left of the first Homepage that shows the last used Maps app (Apple Maps, Google Maps, etc.), maps search/suggestions, and Music widgets. This is unrelated to the new iOS 26 widgets feature and has existed for a while.
If you’re an app developer
Apple has published a useful support document for app developers to make their app widgets work well on a car’s screen. Check it out and update your app so its widgets don’t come across as unoptimized.
On a related note: