5 Ways To Switch Apps On an iPhone

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you five different ways that you can switch between apps on your iPhone. 

So while using your iPhones we spend a lot of time switching between different apps. There are different ways to do this. Some of them offer versatility allowing you to go to any app next. While others offer speed. I'm going to demonstrate here using iOS 26 but these techniques work on the previous versions of iOS as well. 

So, let's say that you're in the Notes App. You want to switch to the Reminders App. Well, the most versatile way to do that is simple to return to the Home Screen. For most iPhones this means taking your finger and putting at the very bottom of the screen and quickly swiping up, like that. That will take you back to the Home Screen. Then you can simply choose any other app, like Reminders. Now this is very versatile because it allows you to go to any app that you want. You can go to the Home Screen, like that, and you can choose any other app here on your Home Screen, on the Dock below, any other Home Screen you may have, or go all the way over and you've got the App Library. You can also just swipe down slightly in the middle, like this, and you enter Spotlight and now you can search for any app. So this technique is great for going from your current app to any app that you want. 

Now if you're using an iPhone with a Home button at the bottom of the screen you would press the Home button once to go back to the Home Screen instead of swiping up. 

But let's say you just want to go back to the previous app. Like, for instance, let's say you were in Reminders and you know that the previous app you were using was Notes. You just want to go back to that app. Well, there's an App Switcher built into iOS that allows you to see all of the apps in the order in which you used them and go back to a previous one without going to the Home Screen first. The action is essentially the same. You swipe up from the bottom but you do it slower. Instead of a quick swipe up from the bottom you do a gentle slower swipe up, like this, and release and you'll see all of your apps listed now. You can actually scroll through them just by dragging from left to right and see all of your previous apps like that. Anytime you see an app, whether it is the next one in the list or even one further down, you can just tap on it and you'll go to that app. So you can continue to use this to cycle between apps as much as you want, like that. If you're using an iPhone that has a Home button at the bottom you can get to the App Switcher by double pressing on the Home button. So that's a great way to quickly switch between apps if you don't need to go to just any other app. 

But there is an even faster way to do it. When you are in an app like this and you know the previous app is the one you want you can simply swipe from left to right across the bottom of the screen, like this. It takes you to the previous app. You can continue to swipe. So a left to right swipe at the bottom always takes you to the previous app and you can keep going. This is definitely the quickest way, at least to get to the previous app that you were using. 

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Now if you're looking for more ways there are more ways to activate the App Switcher or just go back to the Home Screen. For instance, you can go into Settings and then to Accessibility and then scroll down to Touch. Go into Touch and scroll down to the bottom and you've got Back Tap and you can set here what happens when you double-tap the back of your iPhone or triple tap it. You've got options here that allow you to switch apps. For instance, you can just use the App Switcher. So, now with that selected and set as my double-tap I can be in an app. I can activate the App Switcher just by tapping twice on the back of the iPhone and now continue to use regular swipes on the screen to pick what I want. 

If you like instead of App Switcher you can set this to Home and have it as a quick way to get to the Home Screen. Remember you've got double-tap and triple-tap. So maybe you can set one to App Switcher and one to Home if you like. 

Now you can also go back in Accessibility here and to Touch and turn on Assistive Touch. Then you can customize the Menu in Assistive Touch and set one of these, like let's say this button here, to the App Switcher or to Home. Now you've got this button here and if you tap it it brings up the Menu and you can see there's the App Switcher. So it is an easy way to get to that. 

But if you really want to you could actually change the Assistive Touch button to, instead of a single tap opening the Menu, actually going directly to the App Switcher. Or make it so that a double-tap or long-press will go to the App Switcher or perhaps the Home Screen. 

Another option along these same lines is if your iPhone has an Action Button on the side you can also customize that to go to the App Switcher or to the Home Screen through the Accessibility functions that you can access through the Action Button. 

Now there is one last method I want to show you to switch apps. It is probably not the one you're going to use but it's good to know that you can do it this way. Let's say you're in Notes here and you want to switch to Reminders. You can simply use Siri. So activate Siri however you have it set. I have it set for the side button, when you press and hold it to activate Siri, and I can just ask it to go to Reminders. "Reminders". You can see it switches. "Notes". So that is another way to do it. 

For completeness I should add that if you have an external hardware keyboard hooked up to your iPhone then you could just use Command and Tab to switch apps just like you do on a Mac. 

So you can see there's lots of ways to get between apps on your iPhone. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.