17 tips to type quickly and accurately on iPhone

Discover several hidden iPhone keyboard tips, settings, and features that will allow you to type more quickly and accurately, ensuring improved texting, emailing, and overall typing experience.

Many of these tips also work for an iPad.

Set the right keyboard language

The first thing you must do is go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Keyboards and make sure you’re using the correct keyboard language that you’re comfortable with. For instance, if you’re in Australia, it would be better to use the “English (Australia)” keyboard instead of “English (United States).” This way, the suggestions, predictions, and auto-corrections will be more tailored to how you type.

Pro tip: You can add more than one keyboard language to your iPhone for multilingual typing.

See how well auto-correct works for you

Auto-correct is activated by default, seamlessly fixing your misspelled words while typing.

If you need to undo an auto-correction, tap the temporarily underlined word and then select the spelling you originally typed.

Similarly, when you type an incorrect spelling, the word is underlined in red. You can tap it to see suggested corrections and pick a suggestion to replace the misspelled word.

However, if you don’t like auto-correct and find it hindering your typing, you can go to Settings > General > Keyboard and turn off the switch for Auto-Correction.

If you love auto-correct but it has been causing issues lately, you can reset your iPhone keyboard and start fresh.

Try out predictive text and inline predictions

I love predictive text that shows word suggestions above the iPhone keyboard when typing.

However, I’m not a fan of inline predictions that try to finish words or even entire sentences when typing. I find these predictions confusing, inaccurate, and they slow me down.

Out of the box, both these features are enabled, but you can see what works best for you and toggle them on or off in iOS Settings > General > Keyboard > Predictive Text and Show Predictions Inline.

Double-tap to insert a full stop

Instead of finding the period/full stop key to end a sentence, you can double-tap the space bar. This will add a period along with a space so you can type your next sentence without a second thought.

If this doesn’t work on your iPhone, turn on the “.” Shortcut in iPhone or iPad keyboard settings.

Touch and hold a key to type accented letters

You can enter other characters and special accented letters, like é when typing words like café, by touching and holding the “e” key. This also works for several other (but not all) keys on the iOS keyboard.

Enter numbers and uppercase in one swipe motion

When you need to type a one-off number, punctuation, or other symbols, instead of tapping the 123 key to switch to the secondary keyboard, then choosing a number, and then hitting the ABC key to return, you can just place your finger on the 123 key and swipe to the number key you want to insert.

You can also use this tip to enter a one-off uppercase letter by touching the Caps Lock key and then swiping to the alphabet key you want capitalized.

Lock the keyboard in UPPERCASE mode

If you need to type several uppercase letters, double-tap the Caps Lock key to lock it.

Note: You can’t do this if “Enable Capslock” is turned off in iOS keyboard settings.

Capitalize automatically

Your iPhone automatically capitalizes the first letter you type after a period. Just make sure the “Auto-Capitalization” switch is enabled in iPhone keyboard settings.

Note: This doesn’t automatically capitalize “I” and other proper nouns, which can be a bummer.

Convert the keyboard into a trackpad

You can touch and hold the space bar to turn the entire keyboard into a trackpad, then slide your finger to easily move and place the insertion point at the desired spot.

Drag and drop selected text

If you need to move text around, select it and then touch and hold the selected text until it lifts up. Now, you can drag and drop it at another spot in this document or even in other apps.

Use text replacement for special symbols

Imagine your work involves typing the copyright, trademark, registered, or other special symbols on a regular basis. Or, you have to enter your company email address or similar words and phrases frequently.

In this case, you can set up the excellent Text Replacement feature, which will automatically convert a shortcut into a long phrase. For instance, you can have your iPhone enter the copyright symbol when you type “ccpp” or your email address when you enter “emad.” Of course, you can set these shortcuts to whatever you want.

Use Math Results

Math Results is a new iOS 18 feature that solves basic math problems on the spot after you enter the equal sign (=). You can learn more about it and its use cases in our dedicated tutorial.

Try out the swipe keyboard

In place of tapping each key individually, you can swipe over the keys to type words and sentences. Apple calls this feature QuickPath, and it’s one of the best ways to type quickly.

Move the keyboard to one side of the display

When using your large iPhone with one hand, you can touch and hold the globe key to make the on-screen keyboard smaller and move it to the left or right side. This ensures you can reach the keys easily for a comfortable one-handed typing experience.

Make the iPhone keyboard huge

There is no built-in way to make the stock iPhone keyboard huge in size. But if you or an elderly family member find it difficult to hit the small keys, you can use third-party apps to get a massive on-screen keyboard.

Use dictation to enter text and emojis

If you clearly know what you have to type, you can consider speaking to your iPhone, and it will convert your spoken words into text. You can even speak the name of the emoji, and it will insert that.

Simply hit the microphone button from the bottom right of your iPhone keyboard and speak.

While this is not a hundred percent substitute for on-screen typing, it can be handy when your hands are dirty or you have to send a long text and you don’t feel like engaging in traditional typing.

Try excellent third-party keyboards

Lastly, you must know that you’re not stuck with using the built-in iPhone keyboard. If you don’t like it for any reason, you can use third-party keyboards like SwiftKey, Gboard, Grammarly, etc.

I’ve been using Microsoft SwiftKey on my iPhone for almost a decade now. I love how it has adjusted the touch area of each key behind the scenes based on my typing (image below). It also allows me to permanently show a number row above the QWERTY keyboard, switch to a colorful keyboard theme, has a clipboard history function, and its predictive features are the best in business.

Next, check out: Handshake emoji: How to choose separate skin tones for each hand

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