To a long-time iPhone user, gesture navigation is second nature. But to someone new to the OS and devices, especially those switching over from Android, there’s a lot to learn. The latest iPhones, like the iPhone 14, still have physical buttons, including the right side button for toggling power and the left side buttons for adjusting volume. Both can be used for other functions as well, like triple tapping for Emergency SOS, pressing and holding, or even pressing the volume up and power buttons simultaneously to take a screenshot. But this guide provides everything you need to know about iPhone gestures on the best iPhones that require swipes, flicks, and other movements, from the seemingly most simple ones to more complex ones that even avid iPhone users might not realize they can use.

Basic gestures

To get started, let’s learn some of the most basic gestures with the iPhone.

Tap

Touch an item, like an app, on the screen lightly with a finger (or stylus) to open it.

Touch and hold

Touch and hold an item on the screen to perform various secondary functions. Depending on the app, it might pull up a menu for removing the app, editing the home screen, searching, or performing an app-specific function. With Photos, for example, you can view favorites or the most recent from this quick menu. With Mail, you can go to To or CC, run a search, or instantly start a new message. Explore this feature in various apps to discover what it can do.

If you touch and hold an app icon for slightly longer (3-4 seconds), you will cause all the Home screen app icons to jiggle, allowing you to rearrange them, delete an app, create folders, and more. Read our guide on how to customize your home screen on iPhone for more details if you want to rearrange and reorganize.

Scrolling

From many apps, like Mail, Photos, Safari, and others, simply Scroll up and down by swiping your finger or thumb in any direction, and you will move up or down on a page in kind. You can swipe up or down rapidly to quickly go through a long list of e-mails, photos, and more. At any time, touch the screen lightly to halt the scrolling.

Zoom

To zoom in on an item, like a photo or webpage, place two fingers in the middle of the screen and spread them apart. The image or page will begin to enlarge, and you can shift around to hone in on the exact wording or part of an image you want to see. To zoom out, do the opposite and position your fingers on either side of the screen and move them inwards. A quick feature also allows you to double tap to zoom in, then double tap to zoom out if you just want to get a closer look but don’t need to zoom all the way in to see the photo or other piece of content up close.

Wake and sleep

To wake your iPhone up, you need only raise it up to your face, and it will instantly come to your attention. Swipe up from there to automatically unlock the phone using Face ID. If you want to force it back to sleep once you put the phone down, press the right side button.

Siri voice assistance

At any time, you can summon the Siri voice assistant by simply speaking the command “Hey, Siri.” When you initially set up your iPhone, you program your voice into the device by repeating a variety of statements so it can log your intonation and voice to memory. After that, the iPhone will only respond to your commands. If you have multiple Apple devices nearby, it will reply from the one closest to you or whichever hears the command and registers it first. Alternatively, you can press and hold the right side button to call up Siri.

Apple Pay

If you want to quickly pay for an item in a store with a compatible contactless terminal, double-click the side button, and it will pull up your digital credit or debit card and instruct you to hold it up to the reader. Then hold the iPhone up to your face. Face ID will confirm your identity and complete the purchase.

Home screen navigation

There’s a lot you can do right from the Home screen of an iPhone, and some common gestures worth knowing.

Go back home

To get back to your Home screen at any time, swipe up from the bottom edge of the screen near the middle. You can do this to unlock your phone as well, holding it up to your face for Face ID, so you don’t need to enter your six-digit PIN code.

iphone gestures home screen go back home

Siri suggestions, recent apps

While on the Home screen, swiping down from anywhere near the middle of the screen will bring up Siri suggestions, including the most recently used apps and a list of recent searches. This will also bring up a Search bar, so you can search for whatever you want, whether it’s text within a note, a specific app, files, Settings, and more.

Control Center

Swiping down from the top right side of the screen will bring up the Control Center, where you can turn Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on and off, turn on Airplane Mode, adjust brightness and volume, queue up screen mirroring, lock the phone, adjust the phone mode to Do Not Disturb or Focus, for example, turn on the flashlight, and call up other commonly used apps like calculator and camera.

Notification Center

Swipe down slowly and pull from the top left corner of the screen to call up the Notification Center, which shows recent notifications from messages, e-mails, smart home apps, and more. This is also a quick way to call up the flashlight or the camera, which can be accessed on the Lock screen as well.

App Switcher

Swipe up from the bottom middle of the screen and stop your finger near the bottom third of the phone, then wait for a second and let go, or shift your finger slightly to the right and let go to see a collection of currently open apps. You can also tilt your finger slightly to the right to see the various open apps. You can scroll through these like a portfolio, swiping right to review each one. If you want to quickly force quit an app on your iPhone, flick up from anywhere on the app preview screen, and it will close that app. Tap on the app to instantly open it.

Home Screen Widgets

Swipe right from the first Home page screen to pull up your Widgets. Read our guide on how to use widgets on an iPhone for more details on how to customize this page to include all the details and information you want to see at a glance.

Go to the top of the page

If you go to Settings, Accessibility, Touch, and turn on Reachability, you can pull down from the very bottom, middle edge of the screen to pull down the Menu and reach items at the top of the screen (if there are any).

Scroll through open apps

If you want to scroll through open apps by opening them up entirely versus seeing the list in the App Switcher we discussed previously, swipe right or left along the very bottom edge of the screen. This will switch among your open apps, like changing from the Settings menu to websites in Safari, streaming services, and more.

iphone gestures home screen see open apps

Gestures in Safari

If you use the Safari browser, you can easily navigate web pages using gestures along with the bottom button menu. To go back and forward a page, simply swipe right and left. Select an item, like an article you want to read, by tapping it. Then swipe right from the left side of the screen. You’ll go back to the previous page. Conversely, if you swipe left from the right side of the screen, it will go forward to the last screen you just returned from.

It should be noted that these are all default functions. You can adjust some gestures for an iPhone using the AssistiveTouch feature, ideal for those with mobility, vision, or hearing limitations.

Go through this guide step by step, trying out each gesture. In some cases, it might take a few tries before you position your finger in the right spot and activate the gesture correctly. But over time, all these iPhone gestures become second nature, and you won’t even think twice before using them instinctively.