Use This Gesture to Select Multiple Items on Your IPhone
On a computer, selecting multiple items at the same time is very easy – you obviously click and drag to select what you want. On your iPhone, however, it’s a different story. Depending on the application, your obvious options are to click “Select All” or choose the “Edit” button and tediously click on each item you want to select. But as it turns out, your iPhone has a hidden trick that lets you select items at once: Instead of tapping to select multiple items, you can use a simple swipe to quickly review your selection.
As long as the app supports it, swipe with two fingers on the items you want to select and iOS will select those items. You can even swipe down to the bottom of the screen to scroll and select, or lift the screen and repeat the gesture to highlight a different group of items. It’s very funny. Once you’ve selected multiple items, you can press and hold the screen to display bulk actions such as delete, share, and copy. Right now, this gesture mostly works in third-party Apple apps. But there are several ways to use this to your advantage.
Use it to bulk delete contacts on your iPhone
It used to be a nightmare to manage multiple contacts on your iPhone, but that’s no longer the case. Open the Contacts app and swipe with two fingers to select multiple contacts. When you’ve finished making your selection, tap and hold the screen to display the actions you want. This is by far the fastest way to delete multiple contacts and copy them or share them with others.
Use it to select multiple reminders
The Reminders app also lets you swipe with two fingers to select multiple reminders, making it easy to change the order of your reminders. For example, you can swipe on reminders to select them, then tap and hold on the list to “pick up” them and move them to another reminder folder, add flags or tags, or even mark them as completed in a couple of taps.
Use it to quickly sort emails
The Apple Mail app lets you select multiple emails with a two-finger swipe. Once you’ve selected those emails, press and hold the screen to quickly move a bunch of emails to different folders, archive messages, or block multiple senders at the same time.
Use it to turn off unwanted conversations in messages
If you’re getting too many notifications from the Messages app, you can easily mute conversations using the same trick. Open Messages and try swiping with two fingers to select message threads. Touch and hold the display and then touch the Mute button to mute all streams. Just note that this swipe gesture doesn’t work for multiple message selections, only threaded messages.
Use it to pin multiple notes
The Apple Notes app also supports two-finger swiping to select multiple notes. With your notes selected, tap and hold the screen to open more options, such as one that lets you pin all selected notes at once. Of course, you can move or delete all your selected notes with just one tap.