iOS 13
How To: Make Your iPhone Automatically Close Old Tabs So Safari Doesn't Become a Hot Mess
It's easy to accumulate hundreds of Safari tabs on your iPhone, which makes hunting for specific tabs more difficult, especially when they're spread across different groups. Having too many tabs can even slow down Safari itself. You can close all tabs in a group quickly, but not if you want to save some. To prevent this mess, Safari can automatically weed out the tabs it thinks you don't need.
How To: Add Unsupported Cards and Passes to Apple Wallet for Quick, Easy Access on Your iPhone
Apple's Wallet app lets you store boarding passes, concert tickets, gym memberships, vaccination cards, movie stubs, rewards cards, insurance info, student IDs, and more in one place on your iPhone, and you just double-click the Home or Side button to access them. Unfortunately, many cards and passes are not officially supported — but that doesn't mean you can't add them.
How To: This Little-Known Gesture Will Change How You Use Maps on Your iPhone
You can double-tap most maps on your iPhone to zoom in, and tap once with two fingers to zoom out. And I'm sure you're more than familiar with the pinch gesture for zooming. But there's an even better way to zoom in and out on maps, and you can do it with one hand tied behind your back.
How To: This Color Hack Makes Certain Contacts Stand Out in Your iPhone's Mail App
A little-known setting on your iPhone gives you the power to change the color of certain contact names and email addresses when drafting an email. Customizing the color works well for visually separating contacts at a glance, and it can even help you from sending an email to the wrong person.
How To: Blast Your iMessage Friends with an Emoji Explosion Using This iPhone Trick
A low-key iPhone feature that's been around since iOS 10 can make the iMessages you send to family and friends more exciting overall. One particular element is, if you'll forgive my decades-old slang, "da bomb" for emoji.
How To: Use Your iPhone's Mail App to Send and Receive End-to-End Encrypted Emails in Gmail
Gmail uses TLS, or Transport Layer Security, by default for all email communications, so all of your emails will use the standard encryption as long as the recipients also support TLS. But there's a way to add even more security to your Gmail emails, and you can use your iPhone's Mail app to do it.
How To: Change the Default Snooze Time on Your iPhone's Alarm Clock
While hitting snooze won't help you much if you fall back asleep, it can help you wake up more gently. However, your iPhone's default nine-minute snooze may be too long or too short for your preferences. If you tend to fall back asleep quickly, you might be better with a two-minute snooze.
How To: The Trick to Disabling Link Previews for URLs in Your iPhone's Messages App
Apple automatically converts most URLs in the Messages app into rich link previews, but they aren't always pretty, and sometimes you just want to see the full URL instead. While there is no setting on iOS, iPadOS, or macOS that disables rich link previews in the Messages app, there is an easy way to show the URL complete with the scheme, domain name, and path.
How To: It's Easy to Falsify Photo Geotags on Your iPhone to Keep Real Locations Secret
Without realizing it, you may be giving away the GPS coordinates of your home, workplace, school, and other important or secret locations. Unless you've blocked the feature on your iPhone, location data is stored in almost every photo and video you take, and anyone you share the content with can find out where you are or were. But there are a few things you can do to safeguard the information.
How To: 11 Ways to Show the Battery Percentage Indicator on Your iPhone
When you look at your status bar on your iPhone, you'll almost always see the battery icon, which gives you an estimate of how much battery life you have left before you need to charge the device. What you won't always see is the exact battery percentage, but there are multiple ways to force it out of hiding.
How To: The One Hidden Feature Every iPhone Owner Can Benefit From
There's a whole world of hidden iPhone features you might be missing out on, but this little-known tool for iOS is something you should definitely enable so that it's ready when you need it.
How To: There's an Easy Way to Type Fractions as Single Characters on Your iPhone's Keyboard
Whenever you need to type out a fraction on your iPhone, whether in a message, word document, presentation, math problem, recipe, or wherever else you need it, it's easy to use numbers and slashes. But there's a way to make fractions look more professional and easier to read straight from your keyboard.
How To: Disable the iMessage Typing Bubble Indicator So Others Don't Know You're Currently Active in the Chat
Apple's iMessage is one of the main reasons to use an iPhone, and there's a lot you can do in chats without being overly complicated. But there's one issue that continues to drive people nuts, and that's the blue typing bubble indicator with the moving ellipsis (•••). Can you stop it? Not officially, but there are workarounds.
How To: The Trick to Managing iCloud Contact Groups Right from Your iPhone (Since Apple's Contacts App Won't Let You)
You can view and hide iCloud contact groups on your iPhone, but Apple won't let you create or delete groups or add or delete contacts from any groups unless you're on a tablet or computer. Why Apple refuses to add a group management tool to Contacts on iOS is anybody's guess, but there is a workaround you can use instead.
How To: The Secret iPhone Dialer Trick That Dials Extensions Automatically & Navigates Automated Call Menus for You
Automatic phone menus are the worst. You call the number, listen to prerecorded prompts, press button, listen, press button, listen, press button, listen, until you're routed or connected to the right extension, directory, menu, person, or whatever. But you can bypass these automated attendants to get right to where you need to go by setting up a simple shortcut on your iPhone.
How To: Use Any Animated GIF as Your iPhone's Lock Screen Wallpaper
You can set a GIF as the wallpaper for your iPhone's lock screen, but it won't animate like it does when looking at the image in the Photos app. It's an annoying limitation on iOS, but one that's easily bypassed with a tiny bit of work.
Safari 101: How to Find Specific Words or Phrases in Webpages on Your iPhone
Apple's default browser for iOS, Safari, has a ton of useful features, and there's so many that it's impossible to know everything you can do to browse the web more efficiently. One you may not know about brings the Command + F keyboard shortcut right to your mobile browser so you can search for words or phrases directly on any webpage you're viewing.
How To: Water in Your iPhone's Speaker? This Shortcut Can Get It Out
Remember when water and iPhones couldn't mix? Pools, tubs, and toilets would suck down the working iPhones of clumsy and careless owners and spit out expensive paperweights like they were nothing. Times have changed, however, and the newest iPhones can take a swim without fear of certain death. But a dip in liquid can still cause muffled music and audio from the speakers.
How To: Every Hidden Special Character on Your iPhone's Keyboard That You Can Unlock Right Now
Over 115 secret characters are hiding behind your iPhone's default keyboard, and I'm not talking about what you see after tapping the "123" or "#+=" keys. These special composite characters can include accents, dots, and other diacritics, and you'll even see some strange typographical characters like the section sign, inverted marks, and per mille symbol. Here's how you find them.
How To: These Hidden Gestures Can Instantly Undelete Emails for You on Your iPhone or iPad
It's easy to start panicking when you delete an important email, but it's even easier to undo the mistake on your iPhone or iPad. You can retrieve an accidentally deleted email instantly on iOS and iPadOS with the help of a hidden gesture, and you'll be much more efficient with the Mail app once you learn how to use it.