Snappy Safari techniques

FIND TEXT ON A PAGE

To search for a word or phrase on a web page in Safari, either tap Find on Page in the Share sheet’s bottom row, or type in the search field and then tap the last item in the suggestions, under On This Page.

CLOSE ALL TABS

It’s easy to lose count of the number of tabs you have open in Safari for iOS. Fortunately, a long press of the Tabs icon (two overlapping squares) reveals a Close All Tabs option, which indicates how many are open before you close them.

SMALL BUT USEFUL TWEAKS

Some of iOS’s accessibility features are useful to all of us – notably Smart Invert Colors (essentially a dark mode) and the Magnifier for reading tiny text. Turn on those you need in Settings > General > Accessibility. In Accessibility Shortcut at the bottom, tap to turn on the features you want to choose from after triple-clicking the Home/side button, and drag the handles to set an order that makes your most-used features easy to reach.

ADD TO THE HOME SCREEN

Some online utilities and services aren’t available as standalone apps, but you can add them (or any regular web page) to the Home screen by tapping ‘Add to Home Screen’ in the Share sheet’s bottom row.

BRING BACK A CLOSED TAB

If you close a tab by mistake, there’s no need to go all the way into your history or re-enter the site’s address. On iPhone, first tap the Tabs icon. Next, on iPhone or iPad, hold a finger on the new tab (+) icon to open a list of recently closed tabs.

FILTER YOUR EMAIL

Scrolling or searching your inbox to find certain kinds of messages takes a while. To see items of a particular kind in the current mailbox in an instant, tap the icon at the bottom left of the messages list, then ‘Filtered by’ and turn on criteria to match against. To see matching items regardless of where they’re stored, go to the mailboxes list, tap Edit and turn on special mailboxes, such as Unread and VIPs, which collate from all mailboxes.