How to Move Apps on Roku: Rearranging Your Home Screen
Roku makes it easy to customize your home screen by repositioning apps — called channels in Roku's terminology — so your most-used ones are front and center. Whether you're tired of scrolling past apps you rarely open or just want a cleaner layout, moving apps on Roku takes only a few button presses once you know how.
Why App Order Matters on Roku
Roku's home screen loads apps in a vertical list on the left side of the display. By default, newly added channels appear at the bottom of that list, which means the more channels you add, the more scrolling you'll do to reach the ones you actually use. Reorganizing your app order reduces friction — your streaming habits shouldn't require a workout to navigate.
How to Move Apps on Roku 📺
The process is straightforward and works the same way across most Roku devices, including Roku sticks, Roku Express, Roku Ultra, and Roku-branded TVs running the Roku OS.
Step-by-Step: Moving a Channel on the Home Screen
- Press the Home button on your Roku remote to go to the home screen.
- Highlight the channel you want to move by scrolling to it — don't open it.
- Press the Star (*) button on your remote. This opens the channel's options menu.
- Select "Move channel" from the options list.
- Use the Up or Down directional buttons to reposition the channel to your preferred spot in the list.
- Press OK to confirm the new position.
That's the complete process. The channel will remain in its new position until you move it again or remove and reinstall it.
What the Star Button Does
The Star (*) button — sometimes called the Options button — is the asterisk key on your Roku remote. It's a contextual menu key, meaning it shows different options depending on what's highlighted. When a channel is highlighted on the home screen, it gives you options like Move channel, Remove channel, and sometimes channel-specific settings. If you press the Star button while inside an app or on a non-channel item, you'll see a different set of options.
Variables That Affect the Experience
While the core steps are consistent, a few factors can change how this process feels in practice.
Roku OS Version
Roku periodically updates its interface. On older Roku OS versions, the menu labels or the exact wording of the "Move channel" option may differ slightly. If your device hasn't been updated in a while, the option might appear differently — but the Star button shortcut remains the standard way to access channel management across versions.
Roku Device Type
| Device Type | Home Screen Layout | Move App Support |
|---|---|---|
| Roku Stick / Express / Ultra | Standard vertical channel list | Yes |
| Roku Smart TVs (TCL, Hisense, etc.) | Same Roku OS interface | Yes |
| Roku Streambar / Soundbar | Roku OS on connected TV | Yes |
| Roku Mobile App (iOS/Android) | Different interface | Limited — manage via device |
The Roku mobile app lets you control your Roku remotely, but reorganizing channels is generally handled directly on the device rather than through the app's interface.
Number of Channels Installed
If you have a large number of channels installed, the list can become long enough that moving a channel from the bottom to the top requires holding the directional button for several seconds. There's no drag-and-drop or jump-to-position feature — it's a sequential move, one row at a time. The more channels you have, the more deliberate your organization strategy needs to be.
Organizing Effectively: A Few Practical Approaches
There's no single right way to arrange channels, but a few approaches tend to work well for different types of users.
Frequency-first ordering places your daily-use apps — Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, or whichever you open most — at the very top. Everything else falls below based on how often you use it.
Content-type grouping is a looser approach where you cluster similar apps together: live TV apps in one section, on-demand streaming in another, music or podcast apps near the bottom.
Featured Row awareness matters too. Roku's home screen typically includes a Featured Free row and other Roku-curated content rows above your channel list. These aren't moveable — they're part of Roku's built-in interface. Your personal channels live below these rows, so the first channel in your list is actually a few scrolls down from the very top of the home screen.
When Moving Doesn't Stick 🔄
In some cases, users report that a channel returns to its previous position or jumps to an unexpected spot. This can happen when:
- A Roku system update refreshes the home screen layout
- A channel is removed and reinstalled, which places it at the bottom by default
- Roku's Featured or Suggested channel rows shift dynamically based on viewing history, which can make it look like your manual order changed when it hasn't
These situations are worth keeping in mind if you invest time in carefully arranging your home screen, only to find things shifted after an update.
The Part That Depends on You
How you ultimately arrange your Roku home screen depends entirely on your own viewing habits, how many channels you've installed, and how often those habits change. A household with three people sharing one Roku will have different priorities than a solo user with five streaming subscriptions. The mechanics of moving apps are fixed — but whether to reorganize by frequency, by content type, or to periodically purge unused channels altogether comes down to how you actually use the device day to day. 🎯