25 iPhone Messaging Tips and Tricks

25 iPhone Messaging Tips and Tricks
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In 25 iPhone Tips and Tricks we went over helpful tips for customizing and navigating your phone. I’m back with iPhone messaging tips and tricks. We’ll cover helpful shortcuts and other tips that pertain to messaging on iPhone. You’ll find a variety of great keyboard shortcuts, editing options, settings tips and customization techniques for text, e-mail and MMS. Tips that have a link within them take you to a separate page with more information about that topic. If you know a great iPhone tip or trick that you don’t see listed please comment and share with us. Enjoy!

Keyboard and General Tips and Tricks for iPhone

These general tips work for all types of iPhone messaging. Most are keyboard shortcuts that will making typing your messages easier.

1. Need to copy and paste? Double tap or press and hold your finger to the text that you want to copy, letting go after a few seconds. Press “Select” and expand the text box until it covers all the text you’d like to copy. Press “Copy”. When you are in the spot you’d like to paste the text to, double tap and press “Paste”.

2. To quickly delete all text in a message, double tap in the message field and press “Select All”. Press “Cut” to delete the selected text.

3. Don’t like the last sentence you typed out? Shake your phone to undo typing. After you shake your iPhone, a popup message will appear asking if you’d like to undo typing. Press the button to remove the last text entered. Don’t worry, you can undo the undo if you decide you want it back. Shake again to redo typing.

Undo typing - iPhone

4. For text and e-mail messages, you can swipe to delete them. From your inbox, swipe a message from right to left. A red button to delete will appear to the right of the message preview. Press “Delete” to remove the message.

Swipe to delete - iPhone

5. Some letters on your keyboard have a shortcut to a specific special character. Tap and hold a letter to reveal special characters.

6. Tap the space bar twice to add a period.

7. Double tap the shift key to turn on caps lock. For this tip to work, you must have enabled caps lock in your settings. To enable this feature go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Enable Caps Lock - Turn ON.

8. Is the auto-correct feature annoying to you? If you are tired of having your word changed when you press the space bar, turn off iPhone’s auto-correct feature. Go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Auto-Correction - Turn OFF.

9. If you like auto-correct but can’t figure out how to keep it from changing a word that it thinks is misspelled (example, slang words), you can dismiss the suggested word by pressing the “x”. When you press the space bar your word will not change.

10. To insert fun emoticons in your messages, download an Emoji iPhone app. Then you can insert emoticons from your keyboard. To learn how to do this, read Emoji iPhone App Guide.

Emoji keyboard

11. Need to add a number into your message but don’t want to take the time to switch over to the numbers keyboard? You can quickly add a single number to your message and return to the alphabet keyboard. Press and hold your finger to the numbers button. When the number keyboard appears drag your finger to the number you want entered and let go.

Continue to Page 2 for even more iPhone messaging tips and tricks.

Text Message Tips and Tricks for iPhone

This batch of tips pertains to text messages and MMS messages only.

12. To forward text messages, open the message thread that contains the message you want to forward. Press “Edit”. Select the message or messages and press “Forward” at the bottom of the screen. A new message containing the forwarded message will open.

13. Mass delete text messages from your Messages inbox. Press “Edit”. A red circle will appear next to each message thread. Press the circle to open the delete option. Press “Delete”. Repeat until you have deleted all the messages you wanted to remove. Press “Done” when you wish to exit edit mode.

Delete text messages - iPhone

14. If you want to delete specific messages without clearing an entire conversation, open the message thread. Press “Edit”, select the messages to delete and press “Delete”.

15. You can turn off text preview to stop messages from popping up on iPhone screen. Go to Settings > Messages > Show Preview to OFF. When you receive a text the pop up on the screen will say who you received a message from, but no preview will be included.

16. It’s easy to take and send a picture from your Messages inbox. While composing a new message, press the camera button next to the text field. Open the camera app or choose a photo from your camera roll.

Take Photo - iPhone

17. Want to send contact information with a friend? You can by sending contacts through MMS. Open the contact you’d like to share and press “Share Contact”.

E-mail Tips for iPhone

Last, but not least, we will go over a few e-mail tips and tricks. This round of tips pertains to e-mail only.

18. Hate when you accidentally open an e-mail that you didn’t want to read yet? Mark it as unread to remind yourself to read it later. While the message is open, tap “Mark as Unread”. You can find the option in the subject field of the e-mail.

19. Want to save on battery life? You can change the frequency of e-mail retrieval. Set your iPhone to check for new mail every 15 minutes, every 30 minutes, hourly or only when you open the Mail app. Checking manually will save on battery life. Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data > Choose frequency.

20. If you have multiple e-mail accounts synced to your iPhone you are able to disable a specific e-mail account without deleting it from the phone. Works great if you’re going on vacation and don’t want to receive e-mails from work while you’re gone. Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Select e-mail account > Turn Mail OFF.

21. Need to purge your e-mail inbox? Mass deleting e-mails is simple on iPhone. Open your e-mail inbox, press “Edit" and select all e-mails you’d like to delete before pressing “Delete”.

22. You can open PDF, word document, spreadsheet and photo attachments simply by tapping on them. Want a more detailed guide? Read How to Open E-mail Attachments for a step-by-step walkthrough.

23. If you sort your e-mails into folders, you are able to do this from iPhone for your IMAP e-mail accounts. You will need to have the folders already set up from the IMAP server (you can’t create new folders from your iPhone). To do this, open the message you’d like to move. Press the folder icon and choose the folder to move the message to.

24. Don’t like the “Sent from my iPhone” signature that comes standard for iPhone? You can change it. Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts Calendars > Signature > Press clear for no signature or type in your own custom signatures.

25. While composing an e-mail you can change the e-mail account that you are sending from. In the CC/From field, tap the e-mail address listed. Tap the e-mail address again when it separates the fields. A drop down menu appears with your e-mail account options. Select the e-mail account you’d like the message to be sent from.

Sources and Image Credit

“iPhone User Guide.” Apple, www.apple.com

Image Credit: Screenshots provided by author.