iPhone How To

If you want to know the fastest and easiest way to send someone photos, videos, files and so, so much more, you should know how to AirDrop. There’s no need to send an iMessage — Apple’s slick AirDrop feature will immediately send and open the content on someone else’s iPhone (or other Apple device). There’s no middle step.

AirDrop works iPhone-to-iPhone, iPhone-to-Mac, iPhone-to-iPad, Vision Pro-to-Mac — any combination and permutation of two Apple devices. And, if your friend has a Google Pixel 10, you can AirDrop with them, too!

Keep reading to find out everything you need to know about how to take advantage of AirDrop.

You can turn multiple Live Photos shot on your iPhone into a video. Simply select a group of Live Photos taken in a burst, and you can create a single, stitched-together video that you can save to your library and share on social media. It’s a much more accessible way to enjoy those little snippets of video. 

Here’s how it’s done.

In a pinch, you can charge your AirPods with your iPhone. This feature can prove very convenient if you know how to use it. You can also use your iPhone to charge your Apple Watch, or even another iPhone.

Here’s how to take advantage of this capability.

iPhone Game Mode enhances graphics and reduces controller latency automatically when you launch a game. This optimizes performance to make your iPhone gaming as fantastic as possible.

Game Mode also reduces the background activities and services running on your phone. Luckily, if you don’t want that to happen, you can turn off Game Mode from your iPhone’s Control Center.

Here’s everything you need to know about how Game Mode works.

I have a bunch of pro tips to help you organize the Notes and Reminders piling up in your iPhone. Apple has added tons of powerful new features over time, making them comprehensive tools for all the goings-on in your life. 

With tagging, you can quickly filter and search through a big folder of notes or a long to-do list. You can easily put together a bunch of filters by date, location and tag to create a smart list of everything that needs your attention in Reminders. You can even set up template Reminders lists that you can copy at any time.

Let me show you how to set it all up.

In iOS 26, the awesome new Spatial Scenes feature lets you convert an ordinary 2D photo to a 3D scene that moves in your hand. It doesn’t have to be a recent picture or one taken with a special camera, either. You can try out Apple’s new 3D effect on any decent photo, even if it’s from 20 years ago.

You can play with Spatial Scenes in the Photos app, converting images and seeing how the effect works. But the best part is that you can set one as your iPhone’s Lock Screen wallpaper, and see it every time you unlock your phone. It even works with the excellent Photo Shuffle feature, so you’ll keep getting new ones to gawk at.

Check out the GIFs below that show how Spatial Scenes work, or watch our hands-on demo video.

The iPhone’s Live Captions feature generates subtitles of any media playing on your device or heard by its microphone. Powered by the Neural Engine in Apple’s custom silicon, the ability to convert words from music, videos and real-time conversations into text on the fly is a boon to many users in many situations.
If you’re hard of hearing, for instance, the ability to see instant captions on the screen is a game-changer. Or, if you don’t have headphones when you’re sitting in bed late at night and your partner is asleep — or you’re in any situation where you don’t want to make noise, like on the bus or in an office — you can turn on Live Captions to get subtitles.
The applications are endless and exciting. Here’s how to use Live Captions on your iPhone.

Some people achieve and maintain zero unread emails; some let that red badge climb into the thousands. It’s never too late to change your ways — you can become one of those clean inbox people like me. These six tips will help you get to Inbox Zero using features in Apple’s Mail app that you might not have known about.

The obvious Tip No. 0 is this: You should always hit the Unsubscribe button at the bottom of every unsolicited promotional email as soon as you get the first one.

After you kill all those unwanted subscriptions, these six lesser-known features of the Apple Mail app on iPhone, Mac and iPad will make you a true pro at managing your email.

You’ve probably seen some beautiful custom iPhone Home Screens on social media. Some people go to great lengths to creatively customize their Home Screen. You can go for a specific theme and aesthetic using custom icon colors and widgets.

Why spend so much time and effort? For one thing, you likely look at your Home Screen dozens (or even hundreds) of times every single day. A custom Home Screen that matches your style can bring a little spark of joy to your daily life every time you whip out your iPhone. And iOS makes Home Screen customization easier than ever.

Keep reading (or watch our video) for a quick introduction into the world of custom iPhone Home Screens. You’ll find out about new features in iOS 26, how to go above and beyond using Shortcuts, and how you can top off your iPhone aesthetic with widgets. I’ve scoured the internet (Reddit, mostly) to find the finest examples.

You can set up persistent notifications from specific apps so they stick to the top of your iPhone screen. With persistent notifications in iOS, when your phone is unlocked and an important alert comes in, the notification will stay visible at the top of the screen until you act upon it.

It’s an easy way to make sure you don’t miss (or forget about) critical notifications on your iPhone.

This proves super-handy for things like medication reminders. It also works wonders if you’re the sort of person who ignores notifications once they disappear from your iPhone screen. I’ll show you how to make your notifications sticky.

You can turn your iPhone into a smart display on your nightstand, at your desk or in the kitchen using StandBy mode. It’s an attractive way to put your iPhone to work as a small information board or digital clock when you’re not actively using it.

Of course, it works best if you own a phone with an always-on display. However, it works with any iPhone with MagSafe running iOS 17 or later. Best of all, StandBy remembers different preferences for different rooms, so you can set it up as a bedside clock in the bedroom, a digital photo frame in the living room, or a music controller in the kitchen.

Here’s everything you can do with StandBy on your iPhone.

You can send a FaceTime voicemail to someone if they don’t answer your request for a video chat. It’s better than leaving a regular voicemail because it’s video — you can relay a message quickly or show something off on camera.

For instance, if your dog or your human child is doing something cute, or if you want to get a second opinion on an outfit, you might want to show someone. If they don’t answer your FaceTime call, you can record a video to send them to watch later.

Here’s how FaceTime voicemail works.

Check In is an iPhone feature that tracks your travels and lets contacts know when you’ve safely reached your destination or finished a workout. It’s great for traveling, for kids trudging to and from school, for going on a date, and for biking on a dangerous road.

With this feature enabled, you no longer need to remember to text someone when you make it home safely — your iPhone will let them know for you.

Check In is like sharing your ETA in Apple Maps, but tweaked for personal safety. Friends, family and loved ones will be automatically notified if you’re stopped for any reason before reaching your destination.

The safety feature also offers timer-based check-ins, which come in handy for situations like meeting a stranger from Craigslist. If you don’t check in after a set time, your iPhone will alert your contacts.

Here’s how to use it — frankly, everyone should know how this works (especially parents).

Not ready to take a gamble on iOS 26? You can stop an iOS update in its tracks if you don’t want to be pushed into the latest version.

There are all kinds of reasons you might not want to upgrade. Maybe you like the speed and stability of iOS 18. Perhaps you don’t want Apple’s divisive new Liquid Glass user interface slowing down your aging iPhone.

While Apple is finally starting to push people to update to iOS 26, you don’t need to go along with the crowd. Obviously, you can disable automatic updates to put on the brakes, but it won’t be long before Apple starts sending push notifications and red badges, encouraging you to update.

Luckily, there’s a secret trick to hide those and make sure your phone stays on iOS 18 for as long as you like.  Here’s how.

You can make an animated GIF on your iPhone or Mac out of any Live Photo or video in your photo library or saved on your computer. You don’t need to download any apps — simply add a shortcut, and you can make a GIF directly from the share sheet.

If you need an actual GIF file, there’s still a pretty easy way to make them on your phone or Mac. I’ll show you how.

Contact Posters let you customize how your Apple contact card looks to other people when you call them. If they have your contact info in their address book, your customized Contact Poster will appear on their iPhone’s screen. 

Done right, Contact Posters look great — way better than the old thumbnail images that preceded them. Plus, it’s really easy to turn an ordinary picture into a gorgeous-looking Contact Poster that makes a real impact.

And once you set one up, everyone with your matching phone number and/or Apple Account will see your chosen contact picture and personalized Contact Poster.

I’ll show you how to set one up; the process might look familiar if you’ve set up a custom Lock Screen.

It’s good to know how to close apps on iPhone for those times when an app is acting buggy or becomes unresponsive. It’s really easy — just swipe up to see your running apps and swipe up again to close them.

But does this mean you should always quit your open apps? No, not at all.

Despite what you may have heard, quitting apps on iOS usually makes things worse, not better. It’s a myth that quitting apps will save battery life, make your iPhone run faster or free up memory. Overall, it negatively impacts your iPhone’s performance.

Here’s how to close iPhone apps — plus three reasons why you shouldn’t rush to do it.

Phone addiction is real. Constant iPhone use can literally change the makeup of your brain. Sure, people waved similar panic flags about the television, the radio and even the novel, but those were easily left at home. You carry the internet with you, and it’s constantly blasting a firehose of content, everywhere you go.

Luckily, you can make your iPhone less addictive.

If you feel the impulse to unlock your iPhone at every empty moment, or scroll through an app when you feel like you should be getting to bed, here are my tips for making your iPhone a bit more boring. And that, in turn, will help you curb your phone addiction.

You can share passwords on iPhone automatically with your entire family, so you don’t have to reuse the same password everywhere or let everyone in your family know when a shared password is changed.

Setting up this feature is easy and saves the hassle of being texted “hey I can’t get into Amazon, what’s that password again?” and “I need you to send me the code.” When you set up shared passwords, two-factor authentication and passkeys are shared, too.

It’s a huge time-saver, and highly recommended. You can keep reading below or watch our quick video.

You’ll want to reset your iPhone if you’re trading it in, selling it or passing it down to another family member. There’s a right way and a wrong way to do it.
If you don’t fully reset the phone, it’ll still be locked to your Apple Account — and the phone will be effectively useless to anyone who tries to use it.
Follow along to make sure you reset your iPhone the right way.

My favorite change in iOS 26.1 has nothing to do with Liquid Glass, though cosmetic tweaks to the glossy user interface have drawn the most attention in the latest OS update. To me, the biggest improvement is the option to disable the Lock Screen swipe to open the iPhone’s Camera app.

I frequently pull out my iPhone to find the Camera app has been running in my pocket, draining the battery. It’s that damn Lock Screen swipe at fault. If this happens to you, too, here’s how to disable it in iOS 26.1.

You can use the built-in iPhone Wallet app for some basic order tracking with classic Apple ease of use. No need to fiddle with finding and copying tracking numbers — your orders will appear there automatically. 
If you order something from an online store that doesn’t automatically integrate with the Wallet app, there’s a solution for that as well. If your device supports Apple Intelligence, it’ll scan your email inbox and add in all those Amazon orders, too. 
Here’s how the iPhone’s order-tracking feature works. 

You can hide apps on your iPhone so they’re completely invisible, and you can lock all kinds of apps so they require Face ID to open.
Why would you want to? Maybe you have sensitive content you don’t want anyone to see, or you don’t want anyone to know you’re using dating or hookup apps. Hiding apps is also good for staying off social media or away from addictive games. Plus, it’s a great way to declutter your iPhone’s Home Screen. You can really clean things up without deleting apps you might want to keep.
There are, however, a few essential apps on your phone that can’t be hidden. Here’s how it all works.

Knowing how to edit or unsend iMessages on your iPhone could come in clutch. Like when you text your mom, “Finally got laid today” when you meant to say “paid.”
Thankfully, it’s easy to rewrite history in iMessage. Let me show you how this lifesaving feature works.

If you have trouble hearing, you might miss the sound of a knock on the door, a barking dog, or even worse — a smoke detector. Or, you might miss someone calling your name when they’re trying to get your attention. It’s less serious, but much more annoying. With Sound Recognition, you can get a prominent alarm and a buzz on your Apple Watch or iPhone when your phone hears the sounds you choose.

When Sound Recognition is enabled, your iPhone will continuously listen for dangerous sounds. It could, literally, be a lifesaving feature for you or a loved one. And Name Recognition lets you train your phone on how to recognize your name. 

Here’s how to use these important safety and productivity features.