We all know how to do the basics on our iPhones—scroll, text, take photos, and repeat. But there’s a handful of built-in shortcuts buried in iOS settings that most people completely miss.
If you want to speed up how you type, navigate your phone, or just cut down on annoying screen taps, these seven tricks are a game-changer.
1. Move Your Cursor with the Spacebar
Trying to fix a single letter in a typo by tapping the screen is incredibly frustrating. Half the time, the cursor goes to the wrong spot anyway. Instead, just press and hold down the Spacebar.
The letters on your keyboard will disappear, turning the whole area into a trackpad. Now, you can slide your thumb around to slide the cursor exactly where you need it.
2. Turn the Back of Your Phone into a Button
You can actually turn the Apple logo on the back of your phone into a physical shortcut button. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap.
From there, you can choose to trigger an action when you double-tap or triple-tap the back glass. You can set it to take a quick screenshot, turn on your flashlight, or open your camera instantly.
3. Rip the Subject Right Out of a Picture
If you need to quickly crop a person, pet, or object out of a photo, you don’t need a third-party app. Open a photo, press and hold the main subject, and wait a second.
The phone will trace the outline and "lift" the image out. While holding it, you can use your other hand to switch apps and drag it straight into an iMessage, email, or note as a sticker.
4. Stack Widgets to Clear Home Screen Clutter
Widgets give you quick info, but they take up a ton of screen real estate. The fix is stacking them.
Hold down an empty spot on your screen until your apps start shaking, then drag one widget directly on top of another (as long as they’re the same size). You can stack up to 10 of them together and just swipe through them whenever you need a quick update.
5. Bulk Select Items with a Two-Finger Swipe
Clearing out thousands of old emails, text threads, or notes one by one takes forever. Instead of hitting "Edit" and tapping every single circle, try this: drag two fingers down any list in Apple’s default apps.
The phone will automatically check every box your fingers pass over, making bulk-deleting take just a few seconds.
6. Stop Your Screen from Dimming While You're Reading
It’s annoying when your screen goes dark right in the middle of reading a long article. If your iPhone uses Face ID, go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode and turn on Attention Aware Features.
Your phone will use its front sensors to see if you are actively looking at the glass, keeping the screen bright only when your eyes are on it.
7. Shake Your Phone to Undo an Error
If you accidentally delete a giant block of text, type the wrong thing, or make a mistake while editing, you don't have to delete it manually. Just give your iPhone a quick shake.
A prompt will pop up asking if you want to undo your last action. It’s essentially a physical "Ctrl + Z" for your pocket.
Which one did you know?
Most of these features are built right into iOS, but Apple doesn't really advertise them. Once you start using the spacebar trackpad or the two-finger select, it's hard to go back to the old way.
Let me know in the comments—how many of these did you already know, and which one are you going to use first?
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