7 Ways To Copy and Paste Things On an iPhone

You can copy and paste text and objects in a variety of ways on your iPhone in iOS 17 and 18. You can use this to move content from one app to another.
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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you 7 different ways that you can Copy & Paste on your iPhone. 
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Now when the iPhone first came out you couldn't actually Copy & Paste on it. But that was soon remedied and now there are many different ways that you can Copy & Paste on your iPhone. Let's start off with the most basic way. Let's say you're in an App with some text. I'm going to use Notes here but you can be working in Mail or Pages or just about any app where you are creating text. You can double-tap on a word to select it. So I'm going to double-tap on the word quick here. You can see right away I get a menu at the top that has Cut, Copy, Paste. But I don't want just that word. I want more than that. So I'm going to drag the end of that selection over and get exactly the text I want. When I release the menu is still there. So Cut would delete the text from here and put it in the Clipboard so I can paste it later. Copy would just make a copy of what is there. It will leave the current text alone. Then Paste will actually delete the text and take whatever is in the Clipboard and put it there. 
We're going to use Copy here and then I'm going to go to another part of this document, but I could be going to a completely different app as well. I'm going to tap right where the text cursor is blinking and then use Paste. You can see how it pastes a new copy of that text. Likewise I could switch to a completely different app, like Pages, and I could paste there and it will paste that text in. So this is a good way to make a copy of text in the same document, but also a good way to copy text from one document to another. 
Now here's a handy tip if you're going to use that method. You can also select text using the trackpad method. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to tap on the Spacebar in the Keyboard here. I'm going to hold down with my finger, so I'm not releasing. After a second the keys all go blank. Now I'm in trackpad mode. I continue to hold my finger on this screen. I move it around and it's working like a trackpad would on a Mac. I can go and place the cursor where I want it to go. I can release and the text cursor would be in that location. I could also do a quick tap with a second finger anywhere on the keyboard. Once I do that now if I drag it's going to select text rather than just move the cursor. Now I can release and I've made that selection. Now the interesting thing here is that it doesn't give you the Menu. You can still bring it up by just tapping on the selection and now you have Cut, Copy, Paste right there. You can continue as before. 
But another method you can use to Copy can be done while that menu is there, or if it's not there as is the case right now. You can use 3 fingers on the screen of your iPhone. What you want to do is make sure your fingers are not too closely together. You want to have them 3 fingers spaced apart. You want to pinch with those 3 fingers. Do it in the middle of the screen. You don't have to do it right where the text is selected. Then once you do that you could see the word Copy appear at the top of the screen. Then you can tap somewhere else, like here, and you could use the regular way of pasting. Just another tap and then Paste. But you can also use the opposite gesture. Three fingers together in the middle of the screen and then Out and they have to be separated like that. So a quick little unpinch and you could see it says Paste at the top and it pasted the text there. 
I find these gestures really hard to pull-off. Even I can only do it maybe 80% of the time which isn't good enough. As a matter of fact 99% of the time wouldn't be good enough. I prefer to use the Menu there. But if you really like gestures and you're good at them and you find this works for you it is another option. 
Now there is another way to do it using a gesture. So I'm going to select text here and it doesn't matter whether you see the menu there or not. You can take 3 fingers and you want to tap with the 3 fingers in the middle of the screen. Now when you do this make sure all three fingers are connecting with the screen at the same time. If one gets there first it will work just like a regular tap. So, let's do it. Three fingers in the middle of the screen. Then you get this special menu at the top that shows Undo, Cut, Copy, Paste, and Redo. This is a really useful little editing menu there that includes Copy, Cut, Paste. So I can now tap the Copy part there and then notice I can move elsewhere, do the same 3 finger tap, like that, and now I don't get Cut and Copy because nothing is selected. But I can use Paste. Notice how it remains there for me to do multiple things. So I can Paste again. So that can be kind of handy. I also get the Undo and Redo. It will remain there until I do something else, like tap elsewhere in the text. 
Now there is another way to Copy but it doesn't work with selections. It works with the entire document. So for instance if I were to select this text here I could tap the Share button or Action button there at the top. Sometimes, in some apps, it is at the bottom. Then you get a Copy option there. But note the Context at the top here it shows a Note Icon. This is for the whole note. It doesn't show the text that is selected. So if I actually use Copy here I get the whole note. Not these two words. If I were to then switch to another app and Paste you can see how it pastes the entire document in there. Not just the words that were selected. Now, this works better in other situations. For instance, here I am in the Photos App. If I go to a specific photo and I want to Copy and Paste that into a document I can use the Share or Actions button there at the bottom. You can see Copy says Copy Photo. It is being clear what it is doing. You can see the Context right here. I'll copy the photo. Now, I'll switch to another app and I will Paste and it pastes the photo in place. So it is useful in that case. 
Another way to Copy & Paste is to tap and hold an object. So, for instance, if you're in Photos here I can tap and hold this photo. Then I get Copy right there. I can use that to copy and then Paste using any method in another app. This works in other cases as well. For instance, in the Messages App you can tap and hold a message and you can see you get Copy there. Then if you Paste that into a document you can see it pastes the text.
Now in many apps you can also select objects. When you do you can copy those. So, for instance, I'm going to use the select button here at the top of the Photos App when I'm viewing my Library. When I use that I can select multiple images, like this. I'll select these 3. Now I can Copy them using either the Share or Actions here. You can see I can use that. There's Copy photos. It shows me the Context here is 3 photos. But other apps have a three dots button, like this one here. That sometimes also will include a Copy function here. So I can Copy those 3 images that were selected. Now I can Paste and you can see it's going to paste all three images. 
It is not always the case though that you have a Select Button. Sometimes you have to select things a different way. So, for instance, I can tap on one object here in Pages and hold. Then with a second finger tap another object. Now I've got two objects selected. When I release you can see I've got Cut, Copy, Paste and I can Copy both of these objects. 
I want to show you one last way to Copy & Paste that doesn't even involve the Clipboard. You can Drag & Drop objects and text between apps. So I'm going to select some text here. With that text selected I'm going to tap and drag the selection. When I do you can see how it takes out that text and it is now this object that I'm moving around. I still have my finger down on the screen. Now if I release it here what it's going to do Cut from the one location and Paste it in the other. You can see how it is done that. But, if I instead go to a different app, so I'm going to use another finger to bring up the Application Switcher, and switch to Pages. I'm going to drop it here. You can see how it has pasted it there. But if I go back to Notes you can see it has left it there. It is smart enough to know if you're going between apps that you probably just want to make a copy and paste it and not cut it and paste it. 
You could do the same things with objects as well. For instance, in the Photos App here I can tap and Drag this one photo. I can switch apps and then go to this one here and then Drop it there. I basically dragged it from one app to another. It didn't cut it out of the Photos App of course. It made a Copy and now I'll put it here in Notes. So don't ever rule out dragging and dropping as a good alternative to the traditional Copy or Cut and Paste. Also keep in mind that third party apps may do things in a non-standard way. So you may find some third party app had different Cut, Copy, Paste buttons or functionality available. If there is an App you use all the time you may want to explore all of the different Toolbar buttons and elements inside that app to see what other ways there may be to Copy & Paste. Also try out the methods I showed you to see which ones will work and which ones may not in that third party app. 
I hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.
Comments: One Response to “7 Ways To Copy and Paste Things On an iPhone”

Sheldon
7 months ago
Thanks bunches
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7 Ways To Copy and Paste Things On an iPhone

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