How to Copy and Paste Text on iPhone

Watch this video tutorial to learn how to copy and paste text on iPhone or iPad. The buttons are in a hidden menu, so we’ll show you how to reveal them!

To copy and paste text on iPhone or iPad, find the text you want to copy and hold your finger on a word to select it. Move the ends of the blue area to adjust your selection, or tap Select All. Tap Copy. Go to where you want to paste the text. Tap an empty text box to reveal the menu, then tap Paste.

Not all apps for iOS support the copy/paste functions, so depending on where you’re trying to copy text from you may or may not be able to use these instructions. The Messages, Mail, Notes, and Safari apps all support copy and paste.

For more awesome iPhone tutorials, check out our iPhone playlists:

[techlifeunity]

We've published an updated version of this tutorial!

[kistimii]

Can't remember how many times I've sent this to my parents because they always forget how to copy and paste.. Thanks for the video!

[debbiecessna]

Thank you so much!! I’m an old lady and just got this phone. You saved me half a bottle of nerve pills! Lol

[marge]

Just what I needed. Now I can email myself recipe ingredients and paste it into notes and finally I'll have a shopping list for various recipes with me at all times! thank you!!

[jamesmcdevitt]

You make this look easy . I’m finding it hard work

[cynthiamchong]

Thank you. You have saved me so many hours of frustration.

[itssavie]

Tysm! I wanted to add a description to my YouTube videos but I’m not bothered to rewrite it every time, you made it 5, 000X easier

[RawManRaines]

2 different Problems on my iPhone XR
First very often when I open messages I hit the microphone I start talking and it cuts me off on the first or second word all the time I don’t know how to make it stop doing that very frustrating want to slam my phone with a hammer.
Second problem,
I type a message in messages I have not sent it yet I want to make a copy of it it will not let me select All, neither will it let me drag the little Dot to cover the whole message outside of the window that I can see it won’t drag it the rest of the way up or down
I will love you for a very long time if you can solve these two issues for me

[elizabethloera]

Thank you so much I had so much trouble

[jacekr]

This was such a short and precise tutorial. Thanks for making it available.

[DeeD]

🤩OMG, girl thank you so much, every time I read how to do it, seems so complicated but you made it so simple🥳🥳

[TitanSpeakerman]

Thank you so much! I can now make a video with the corrupted text

[charleshurstreinvention]

Thanks---that's what I needed---just a simple explanation---Charles

[Eric-jbtf]

This really helped. Thanks for publishing.

[TayenAndLazyAnimator]

I finally got to copy and paste a code thank you so much

[trbcddr]

Thanks you! I’m an older lady learning how to use my older phone😜😅
Very helpful tutorial!

[jorgia]

It doesn’t work. It just zooms into my text what do I dooo

[mariaandnickdean]

Thank you so much.Very well explained and so calming voice that I followed with ease 🥰👍

[sstarklite]

I’ve been doing all this for many years, on my iPad (it works fine on my iPhone I think) but now it’s hard to get to “select all”, I tap, tap and hold, but it won’t give me anything, it has taken sometimes 10-20 tap-and-holds before I finally get even “copy” and much less “select all “. It’s very irritating. Recently I couldn’t even move the cursor from one line to the next before 10+ tries! Have they purposely tried to make it more difficult??? ??? Or maybe it’s only on YouTube comments. But just now I’ve tried it here and it works fine. It’s crazy.

[zaphenath]

Seems to be an error in the steps. When it's time to paste, you do not just tap where you want to paste, as stated in the video. You must press and hold (long press), and then the Paste command will show up.