Over the years, iOS has become increasingly feature-rich and complex. With each new update, Apple introduces more tools and settings—many of which aren’t immediately visible—resulting in a wide range of hidden iPhone features that most users never discover.
These tips assume you’re running iOS 26 or later on your iPhone.
Turn an App Into a Widget
You can quickly convert many app icons into widgets directly from your Home Screen without opening any menus.
Just press and hold an app icon until a menu appears, then choose one of the widget size options shown at the top. If the app supports widgets, it will instantly switch from an icon into a live widget view.
This works with both Apple apps and many third-party apps that include widget support. To switch back to the normal app icon, long press the widget again and tap the small four-square icon in the top-left corner.
See Where You’ve Been
In the Maps app, you can revisit your location history to see places you’ve previously visited. This is especially helpful if you’ve been on a trip, discovered a great restaurant, or found a spot you’d like to return to later but didn’t save at the time.
To access this feature, open the Maps app and tap your profile icon. From there, select Places, then choose Visited Places. Your visited locations are grouped into categories such as leisure, dining, shopping, and also organized by city, making it easier to browse your travel history.
If you want to manage or delete this data, scroll to the bottom of the screen to clear your history, or choose how long visits should be saved. You can also disable the feature entirely by going to:
Settings > Maps > Location > Visited Places
Set Custom Vibrations
Most people know you can assign custom ringtones or text tones to contacts, but iPhone also lets you create unique vibration patterns for specific people. This is especially useful if your phone is usually on silent mode, since you can still identify who’s contacting you without looking at the screen.
To set it up, open the Contacts app and select a person. Tap Edit, then choose Ringtone or Text Tone, and go to Haptics. From there, tap Create New Vibration and use taps and presses to design a custom vibration pattern for that contact.
You can assign different vibration patterns to important contacts, so you can instantly recognize who’s messaging you without even looking at your iPhone. This is especially helpful if you keep your device on silent mode.
To set a custom vibration, open the Contacts app and choose a person. Tap Edit in the top-right corner, then select Text Tone or Ringtone. Next, tap Haptics and choose Create New Vibration. From there, you can tap and press on the screen to design your own unique vibration pattern.
Customize Your Lock Screen Buttons
Your Lock Screen shortcuts aren’t limited to just the Flashlight and Camera anymore. You can replace them with other useful controls, including options from Control Center and even supported third-party apps.
To change them, go to your Lock Screen and press and hold until customization mode appears. Tap Customize, then select your current Lock Screen. From there, tap the “–” icon on either shortcut to remove it, and use the “+” button to add a new control of your choice.
To do this, long press on your Lock Screen. Tap Customize if you want to edit your current wallpaper and Lock Screen setup, or tap the “+” button to create a new one. Once you’re in the editing screen, tap the “–” icon on the shortcuts shown on the left or right side of the screen to remove them. After that, tap “+” to add a new control of your choice.
Back Tap Gestures
Back Tap is a built-in iPhone feature that often goes unnoticed, but it can be very powerful. It lets you trigger actions by tapping the back of your iPhone—either twice or three times.
You can set it up to perform actions like taking a screenshot, turning on the flashlight, opening apps, or even running custom Shortcuts you’ve created.
To enable it, go to:
Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap
From there, you can assign different actions for double-tap and triple-tap gestures.
Go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch, then scroll down and tap Back Tap to set it up. From here, you can assign different actions for a double-tap or triple-tap on the back of your iPhone, letting you quickly trigger shortcuts without opening menus.
Screenshot a Webpage
Normally, when you take a screenshot using the side button and volume up button, your iPhone only captures what’s visible on the screen. However, you can also capture an entire webpage or PDF as one long image.
First, take a screenshot as usual. Then tap the preview thumbnail that appears (if full-screen previews are not enabled). At the top of the editing screen, select Full Page. You can then save the full-length screenshot as a file, making it easy to capture entire articles, documents, or webpages in one go.
Hide Apps
If there are apps you don’t want showing on your Home Screen, iPhone gives you a couple of easy ways to keep things private or declutter your layout.
You can hide individual apps by pressing and holding the app icon, then choosing the option that uses Face ID (or authentication) to hide it. This removes it from the Home Screen while still keeping it installed on your device.
You can also hide entire Home Screen pages at once. To do this, press and hold on an empty area of the Home Screen until you enter jiggle mode, where the apps start to wiggle.
Tap the dots at the bottom of the screen to view all your Home Screen pages, then uncheck the page you want to hide. This removes that page from view without deleting any apps. Hidden pages won’t appear on your Home Screen, but the apps are still accessible through Spotlight Search and their categories in the App Library.
To bring a page back, repeat the same steps and simply re-check it.
Quickly Set a Timer
If you add the Timer control to Control Center, you can set timers much faster with a simple gesture.
Once it’s added, just long press on the Timer icon to open a slider. From there, you can quickly choose how long you want the timer to run, ranging from a few minutes up to several hours, and start it instantly without opening the Clock app.
In Control Center, tap the “+” button, then choose Add a Control. Select the Timer option to add it to your Control Center.
Once it’s added, you can press and hold the Timer control to open a slider, choose a duration, and then tap Start. Timer options typically range from about one minute up to two hours, allowing you to quickly set countdowns without opening the Clock app.
Remove Photos Location Data
If you’re sharing photos, you might want to remove hidden metadata like location information for privacy.
To do this, open the Photos app and select an image. Swipe up on the photo or tap the info/details area, then choose Adjust Location. From there, you can set it to No Location to remove the location data before sharing.
Alternatively, when you’re sharing a photo, you can remove location metadata directly from the share sheet. Select the image in the Photos app, tap the Share button, then open Options at the top. From there, simply toggle off Location before sending the photo.
Use a Timer to Turn Off Media
You can also use the Clock app’s timer feature to automatically stop music, podcasts, audiobooks, and other media after a set time. This is especially useful if you like listening before bed and don’t want playback running all night.
To set it up, open the Clock app and go to Timers. Set your desired duration, then tap When Timer Ends. Scroll down and select Stop Playing. When the timer finishes, any media currently playing on your iPhone will automatically stop.
In the Clock app, tap Timers and set your desired duration. Then tap When Timer Ends, scroll all the way down, and select Stop Playing.
Once you start the timer, any music, podcasts, audiobooks, or other media currently playing on your iPhone will automatically stop when the timer runs out—making it a simple way to control playback, especially at night.
More Tips
Got a favorite iPhone trick that most people don’t know about? Feel free to share it in the comments below.