10 MIND-BLOWING iPhone Tips & Tricks You DON’T Know!

• Automate call answering to never miss important calls
• Use background sounds to create a calming environment anywhere
• Keep Safari tabs organized with automatic tab closing
• Easily forward just the relevant parts of emails
• Save articles as clean PDFs for archiving or sharing
• Preview real-time flight information right in Messages
• Manage and modify app subscriptions through the App Store
• Use swipe gestures to quickly organize lists with bullet points
• Enable trackpad mode for precise text editing and selection
• Capture the perfect action shots using burst mode in the Camera

2. Set the Mood with Built-In Background Sounds

Whether you need to focus on work, unwind after a stressful day, or drown out distracting noises, your iPhone has you covered with its selection of immersive background sounds. These include soothing audio tracks like rain, ocean waves, stream, and white noise. You can access them through the Accessibility settings menu under Audio/Visual > Background Sounds. From there, you can choose your preferred soundscape, adjust the volume, and even set the sounds to play continuously in the background as you use other apps.

For even quicker access, you can add a Background Sounds toggle to your iPhone’s Control Center. This allows you to start or stop playback with a single tap from any screen. To add this shortcut, open Settings > Control Center > Customize Controls and tap the green plus icon next to Hearing to include it in your Control Center menu. With these serene background tracks just a swipe and tap away, you can instantly create a calming environment no matter where you are.

3. Automatically Close Old Safari Tabs to Reduce Clutter

It’s all too easy to accumulate a large number of open tabs in Safari as you browse the web on your iPhone. If left unchecked, this clutter can make it difficult to find specific pages and bog down your browser’s performance. Fortunately, iOS includes a handy automatic tab closing feature to keep your Safari browsing organized without requiring constant manual maintenance.

In the Settings app, navigate to Safari > Close Tabs and choose a time interval for when open tabs should be auto-closed. You can opt to close them after one day, one week, or one month. With this setting enabled, Safari will automatically clean up stale tabs in the background based on your specified timeframe. This ensures a more manageable, streamlined browsing experience so you can always find what you need without wading through outdated tabs.

4. Easily Forward Specific Portions of Email Messages

When forwarding emails from your iPhone, you don’t always need to include the entire message contents. If you only want to share a particular section, iOS makes it simple to forward just the parts that are relevant to your recipient. To do this, open the email in question and highlight the specific text you want to forward by pressing and holding, then dragging the selection handles. With the desired portion selected, tap the forward button to compose a new message containing only that excerpt.

This targeted forwarding capability is perfect for when you need to pass along key details without inundating the other party with the full email thread. It’s also useful for safeguarding sensitive information by ensuring you only share what is truly necessary. The next time you need to forward an email, remember that you can easily narrow down the contents to just the essential parts.

5. Convert Articles to Clutter-Free PDFs for Saving or Sharing

Simplified, ad-free article PDFs are just a couple taps away with Safari’s hidden Reader PDF feature. When you come across an article you’d like to save or share in a clean, uncluttered format, start by tapping the Reader View icon in the address bar to strip away ads and other distractions. Then, tap the share button and select the “Create PDF” action. Your iPhone will generate a crisp, clear PDF document of the article’s core text and images, perfect for archiving or sending to others.

This trick is incredibly handy for a variety of scenarios. Save your favorite recipes as PDFs for easy reference while cooking, create a distraction-free version of a how-to guide for later use, or share an interesting story with friends without any unsightly ads or formatting quirks. By turning cluttered articles into clean PDFs, you can curate your own collection of content optimized for readability and shareability.

6. Track Flights in Real-Time Right from Messages

Keeping tabs on a flight has never been easier thanks to the flight preview feature built into the Messages app. Whenever someone sends you a flight number via iMessage, you can tap on it to bring up a detailed flight information panel powered by data from Apple’s Maps app. This includes the current flight status, departure and arrival times, and even the baggage claim number for your destination airport.

Having this information at your fingertips makes coordinating airport pickups or planning around flight delays a breeze. You can quickly check if a flight is on time without having to search for the airline’s website or dig through your email for a confirmation code. The next time you’re meeting someone at the airport or taking a trip yourself, be sure to send the flight number via Messages for effortless, real-time tracking.

7. Take Charge of App Subscriptions Through the App Store

Many apps now rely on recurring subscriptions to provide ongoing access to premium features and content. However, keeping track of which services you’re subscribed to and how much you’re spending each month can prove challenging. Luckily, the App Store on your iPhone includes a centralized hub for managing all of your app subscriptions in one convenient location.

To access this menu, open the App Store, tap your profile icon in the top right corner, and select Subscriptions. Here you’ll find a list of all the apps you’re currently subscribed to, along with options to modify your subscription level or cancel it entirely. You can also review your subscription history and even resubscribe to previously canceled services. If you spot a subscription you no longer need or want to switch to a different tier to save money, you can make those changes with just a few taps. By regularly auditing your subscriptions through this menu, you can ensure you’re only paying for the apps and services you actually use.

8. Streamline List Creation with Intuitive Bullet Point Gestures

Jotting down lists and notes on your iPhone is a quick and convenient way to stay organized, but formatting them with bullet points and indentations can be a bit tedious. Luckily, there’s a hidden gesture for manipulating bullet points to make structuring your lists a snap. When you’re editing a bulleted list in apps like Notes or Reminders, simply swipe right on a bullet point to indent it or swipe left to outdent it.

This gesture works for both single bullet points and multi-line selections, allowing you to rapidly change indentation levels on the fly. You can even swipe repeatedly to move a bullet point multiple levels in either direction. By leveraging this intuitive swiping motion, you can spend less time fiddling with formatting and more time capturing your important thoughts and ideas. Give it a try the next time you’re making a list on your iPhone and see how much more efficiently you can organize your notes.

9. Transform Your Keyboard into a Precise Editing Trackpad

Editing text on the iPhone’s comparatively small screen can sometimes feel fiddly and imprecise, especially when trying to place the cursor at an exact position. But there’s a hidden trackpad mode that makes it far easier to navigate and refine your text. To activate it, simply press and hold on the spacebar until the keyboard turns blank. You can then drag your finger around to move the cursor with pinpoint accuracy, making it a breeze to select specific characters or jump to a particular spot in the text.

This transformative capability is useful across a wide range of apps, from word processors and email clients to text editors and note-taking tools. Not only does it enhance the precision of your text selection, but it also enables you to navigate lengthy documents with a swiftness that isn’t possible with conventional cursor positioning techniques. Once you get a feel for the iPhone’s hidden trackpad mode, you’ll wonder how you ever managed your text editing without it.

10. Never Miss a Moment with Burst Mode Photography

Capturing the perfect shot of a fast-moving subject like an athlete, pet, or child can be tricky, as the slightest delay in pressing the shutter button can mean the difference between a stunning photo and a blurry mess. That’s where the iPhone’s burst mode comes in handy, allowing you to record a rapid sequence of frames and select the best one afterwards. To use this feature, simply press and hold the shutter button in the Camera app—or volume up button if you’ve enabled that option in settings—and your iPhone will capture images at a rate of up to 10 frames per second for as long as you hold the button.

Once you’ve taken a burst of photos, you can review the individual frames and save only the ones you want to keep, discarding the rest to save storage space. This is particularly useful for action shots, group photos where someone always seems to be blinking, or any situation where timing is critical. By leveraging burst mode in these scenarios, you can dramatically increase your odds of getting a great photo in the moment. So the next time you’re trying to photograph a fast-paced scene, remember to hold down that shutter button and let your iPhone do the rest.