Method and device for arranging icons

The embodiment of the invention discloses a method and a device for arranging icons, relates to the field of a handheld terminal device and solves the problem that when the number of main menus or icons on the table is large, after arraying the main menus or the icons on the table according to initial letters, a user is still difficult to search a needed program icon from the large numbers of icons. The technical scheme of the invention comprises the following steps of: obtaining a characteristic value of an application downloaded from a third party; and arranging the applied icons according to terminal icon classes corresponding to the applied characteristic values based on the mapping relation of the predetermined characteristic value and the terminal icon classes. The method and the device for arranging the icons can be used for arranging the downloaded icons on the table and the main menus in the handheld terminal device.