Mistakes Happen. Here Are the Quickest Ways to Undo Them on Your iPhone
I’m still typing on my iPhone. I participate in several group chats, write a lot of emails, and have long entries in my Notes app. Even so, I’m not the most accurate typist. Autocorrect can fix most of my typos, but sometimes I just need to undo something I accidentally wrote and deleted.
We all make mistakes when typing on our tiny touchscreen keyboards. You’ve probably had the experience of highlighting a long paragraph, intending to cut or copy it, only to accidentally hit the Delete key.
There is no need to panic when you make a typo, because iOS gives you some options to recover your deleted text. Read on to learn three different ways to quickly undo the last action on your iPhone.
Don’t worry, shake it
Shake to Undo works as promised, even if it’s a bit annoying.
A simple option to fix an error on your iPhone is Shake to Undo, which was introduced in 2009 with iPhone OS 3. To show the undo alert, you just need to quickly move your phone up and down a few times.
While it works well, Shake to Undo isn’t exactly an elegant solution (unless you imagine yourself making a martini for James Bond).
You might also accidentally enable Shake to Undo. If this happens too often, you can go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch and deactivate the option.
If you want to stop Shake to Undo from activating, turn it off in your settings.
Swiping left isn’t just for rejecting dates
Shaking your iPhone up and down isn’t the only way to undo your typing errors with iOS. Another easy method is to swipe left on your screen, which will automatically undo your last action.
If you change your mind again, swiping three fingers to the right on your screen will let you redo what you just undone.
The three-finger swipe for Undo/Redo can be difficult to do, especially if you have a lot of content on your screen. If you’re clumsy like me, you might end up tapping something else while you’re trying to coordinate your fingertips.
My Favorite Method to Undo on iPhone Also Works for Cut and Paste
Although you can undo your mistakes by shaking your screen or swiping left, my preferred method is simply tapping the screen with three fingers. This action brings up a handy toolbar with options to undo, cut, copy, paste, and redo.
You can call up this toolbar by tapping your screen with three fingers.
This three-finger press saved me from having to retype my texts several times. It’s second nature to me now. However, when I discovered this gesture, I had difficulty understanding it.
I once accidentally double-tapped with three fingers, which performed a different action that enlarged my entire screen (I returned my screen to normal by double-tapping with three fingers again).
Experiment with these three methods to find the one that works best for you. If you’re a better typist than me, you won’t have to use an Undo shortcut too often. But when you make the occasional mistake, you’ll be glad you know how to fix it.
