How to use your iPhone's keyboard as a trackpad and freely move the cursor for more efficient typing

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How to use your iPhone's keyboard as a trackpad and freely move the cursor for more efficient typing
Use your iPhone's keyboard as a trackpad to type more efficiently.Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images
  • It's possible to use your iPhone's keyboard as a trackpad and easily move your cursor around when typing.
  • Moving your cursor lets you insert text in different locations and make more precise edits to your writing.
  • To use your iPhone keyboard as a trackpad, just press and hold your spacebar.
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Every smartphone user out there knows the struggle of typing an entire message, realizing that you misspelled a word, and then struggling to get their cursor back in the right spot to fix it. More often than not, it's quicker to just delete the entire word and retype it.

What iPhone users may not realize is that there's actually an easier way to move the cursor around when typing — using the spacebar as a trackpad.

Here's how to do it.

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How to use your iPhone's keyboard as a trackpad

This method works with any text box, as long as you're using the iPhone's default keyboard. Also note that this feature is only available on iPhones running iOS 12 and newer.

1. Type any text box or area that you can type in. This can be your Notes app, a search bar, a text message — anywhere you can type.

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2. Press and hold one finger on the spacebar. All the other keys will gray out.

3. Swipe your finger across the spacebar, and your cursor will move around the text area.

How to use your iPhone's keyboard as a trackpad and freely move the cursor for more efficient typing
Press and hold on the spacebar, then swipe your finger around to turn the keyboard into a trackpad.Melanie Weir/Business Insider

4. Move the cursor around until you have it where you need it, then let go of the spacebar to place your cursor and resume typing.

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