Use this gesture to select multiple items on your iPhone

iOS lets you manage multiple selections with dedicated buttons. This works very well. Eat more efficiently and faster with a simple gesture. Explanation.

On a computer, selecting multiple items at the same time is very easy, just click and move the cursor to select what you want. It’s different on your iPhone. Depending on the application, your most obvious options are to click the Select All button, or select the Edit button and click on each item you want to select. But the iPhone has a little trick to these batch actions. Instead of tapping to select items, you can use a simple swipe to control your selection.

If the app in question supports this gesture, use two fingers and swipe over the item you want to select. iOS will then select those elements. You can even swipe down the screen to scroll and select, or release the screen and repeat the gesture to select a different group of items. It’s very simple and intuitive. Once you’ve selected your items, you can press and hold to display available actions such as delete, share, or copy. Right now, this gesture works mostly with Apple apps, but you can already get a lot of use out of it.

To delete multiple contacts on your iPhone at once

Managing multiple contacts at the same time on your iPhone was a real nightmare. Today is easier. Open the Contacts app and swipe with two fingers to select multiple contacts. When your selection is complete, press and hold the screen to display the actions. This is the fastest way to bulk delete contacts, copy them or share them with others.

To select multiple reminders

The Reminders app also lets you swipe with two fingers to select multiple reminders, perfect for rearranging them easily. For example, you can swipe on reminders to select them, touch and hold them to move them up the list or to another folder, add tags, or mark them as done in just a few steps.

For quick sorting of letters

The Apple Mail app lets you select multiple emails with a two-finger swipe. Once the emails are selected, press and hold the screen to quickly move the selected emails to another folder, archive them, or even block multiple senders at once.

To disable conversations in messages

If you have too many notifications from the Messages app, you can easily mute conversations with the same trick. Open Messages and try swiping with two fingers to select conversations. Press and hold the screen, then press the Mute button. Be careful, this gesture doesn’t work to select multiple messages, only multiple conversations.

To pin multiple notes

The Apple Notes app also supports this gesture for selecting multiple notes. After selecting notes, touch and hold the screen to display additional options, such as immediately pin all selected notes. Of course, you can also move or delete all selected notes with a single tap.