How-To

It's important to turn off Activation Lock when you give away or sell your iPhone, iPod, or other Apple device so that the person who now owns your device can use it. Activation Lock turns on automatically when Find My is activated, so you may not even realize it's enabled, which is why many users don't realize until it's too late that they haven't disabled the lock. Don't worry: even if you have already given away or sold the device, it is still possible to turn off Activation Lock remotely. We'll show you how.

If your App Store icon disappeared from your Home screen and you’re wondering how to restore it, we’ve got great news for you: A missing App Store icon on the iPhone doesn’t mean you deleted the app. While there are other native apps that you can delete, the App Store is not one of them. Our guide will show you several ways to find and bring back your missing App Store icon, so you can download and update your apps once again.

Learn how to make sure you get someone's attention when you want them to see a message in a group chat. Sometimes you want to make sure a particular person or people within a group chat sees your message to the group. With iOS 14, Apple has added the ability to tag contacts in a group text, so you can make sure someone gets notified whenever you mention them in the chat. Let's get started learning how to tag a contact in a group chat, including a few important details to keep in mind.

While the several iPhone Home screen pages offer fun options like widgets and app sorting, some people would rather not have to scroll through several Home screen pages to find the app or widget they're looking for. Fortunately, you can remove unwanted iPhone home pages, and cut it down to the perfect amount for you. It's easy to learn, easy to do, and easy to reverse. Learn how to remove Home screen pages on your iPhone.

How to Use the iPhone App Library

By Amy Spitzfaden Both

A new feature introduced in iOS 14 is the iPhone App Library. The App Library automatically sorts your apps into folders and also offers an alphabetical directory where you can search for any app you have downloaded. This takes away the difficulty of searching through your Home screen for lesser-used apps, and offers helpful suggestions when you're not sure which of your apps would best suit your purpose. In the mood for a game, but don't know which one? See them all in one place. So let's take a look at how to use the App Library.

If you've set up Screen Time on an iPhone or iPad for your child and have blocked or limited social media and other apps, those apps' services may still be accessible via their URL websites, providing kids with a way to get around your parental controls. Here's how to block a website on Safari, Chrome, or any browser on an iPhone or iPad. Whether it's Facebook, YouTube, or any other website that's too mature for your kids, you'll be able to fully block an app's website and not worry about kids finding a way to use them. This tip can also be used by adults who are trying to limit their own social media use, or don't want adult content unexpectedly popping up on their devices.

With iOS 14, your iPhone incoming call notifications now appear as banners at the top of your screen. The benefit of this compact notification is that it notifies you of incoming calls without interrupting anything else you’re doing on your phone. The full-screen version, on the other hand, offers a couple of menu options that are not readily available on the banner. Some people love the brief banner-style alerts, others miss the functionality of the full-screen notification. With this guide, you can permanently switch back to full-screen notifications or learn how to access those menu options while keeping the banner as your default.

This article will tell you how to draw perfect shapes on your iPhone and iPad. Whether you just like to doodle or are looking to mark up your photos, you might be interested in how to draw shapes on your iPhone perfectly. Maybe you want to add a heart to a photo of you and your family but don't like the way yours look, or you're trying to create a geometric pattern in your notes app, or want to teach a child about shapes and how they're made. Whatever your reason, learning the trick to draw shapes on your iPhone or iPad perfectly can save you from downloading third-party sticker or design apps. Perfect shapes make for easy drawing on your iPad and iPhone, so let's get started!

The Apple Notes app is a convenient way to keep track of lists, ideas, and more. You can choose to start a new note from your Lock screen every time you need to jot something down, or to continue with the last note you were working on. We've already shown you how to write a note directly from your iPhone's Lock screen, and how to organize your notes by transferring them to a folder. Now, let's learn how to set whether to continue a previous note or start a new note when opening Notes from your Lock screen. 

This article will tell you all the group messaging features in iMessage introduced in iOS 14. Group messages are a great way to keep families and friend groups in close contact, whether you're all in different places in the world or just want to have your plans written down in one place. However, if there are too many people talking about too many different things, the group chats can get confusing, and if you have too many going on at once it can be hard to keep track of which is which. iOS 14 introduced some new ways to organize and label your group messages to keep your communication easy and fun - as it should be! Let's take a look at these new features and how they can help you get the most out of your group chats.

If you forgot your Notes password, then you’ll need to reset your password in order to lock and unlock your notes. To reset your Notes password, you’ll need to navigate to the Notes section of the Settings app and log in with your Apple ID. This is also how to reset your password if you already know it. Read on to learn how to reset a password for the Notes app.

This article will tell you how to use the iPhone's new Wind Down feature to benefit your bedtime routine. The Sleep Schedules introduced with iOS 14 have a lot of potential to get people on the right track when it comes to their bedtime routines, but it can also be a nuisance if you don't optimize it for your personal habits. Wind Down Time is a mode where your phone goes into Do Not Disturb mode to encourage you to stop your usual activities and — you guessed it — wind down. This can be overridden on your lock screen, and you can also set up shortcuts to the activities that help you wind down, so you don't have to open your whole phone and see all the notifications vying for your attention that you should really leave until the morning. When I set up my first Sleep Schedule I was annoyed at the Wind Down notifications and subsequent Do Not Disturb mode. However, if you take just a little extra time to think about your own habits and what helps you settle down at night, Wind Down mode can be a very useful tool to help your mind settle down at the end of the day. So here are the best ways to get the most out of Wind Down mode and, if all else fails, how to turn off your Sleep Schedules.

When you want to share an app, there are a couple of ways to go about it. If you have the app downloaded to your iPhone, you can easily share it right from your Home Screen or app folder. If you'd like to share an app that you don't have downloaded or easily accessible, you can also share it from the App Store, which only takes a few additional steps. Here's how to share an app with a friend or family member in a few simple steps.

Have you waited for an email to arrive in your Primary Gmail inbox, but it never appeared? Gmail has multiple inboxes, or tabbed inboxes, and your email may have been delivered to your Social, Promotions, Updates, or Forums tab instead. Gmail usually does a good job sorting your email into these different categories, but sometimes gets it wrong. Don't worry; you can not only move your email to the correct Gmail inbox, but make sure that emails from that sender are directed to your Primary Gmail inbox in the future. Here's how to move an email between Gmail categories and redirect future emails from that sender to your Primary email inbox.

This article will tell you how to take a screenshot on your iPhone using Siri. We've gone over how to take a screenshot manually, but pressing buttons on an iPhone can be a literal pain if you have joint problems. That, plus messy fingers from cooking or being outside in the cold can make it hard to use to your hands to do a screenshot. For those times when a manual screenshot isn’t an option, you may have wondered, "can I ask Siri to take a screenshot?". The answer is, yes! With iOS 14, you can now just tell Siri to take a screenshot, instead of having to use Voice Control, as you did previously. Let's learn how.

Location Services on your iPhone lets Apple apps (like the Camera app) and third-party apps (like your banking app) figure out where you're located while using your phone. When iPhone Photo Location Services is turned on and you take a photo, it'll tag your photo with your current location. This way, you can search through the photos that you took on your vacation to Bora Bora or in your own hometown. Location Services uses Wi-Fi or cellular data plus GPS services to find your location. If you're connected to data or Wi-Fi but your photos aren't being tagged, we have a few simple fixes for you to try. Here's how to get Photos Location Services working again.

Apple TV lets families and friends customize their own watching experience. With Apple TV multiple accounts, you can convert your home theater into a multi-user experience. This helps keep a separate watching history for each user, to allow for personalized recommendations and billing. A few easy steps is all it takes to provide each household member with their own Apple TV profile.

This article will tell you how to format an email in the Mail app on your iPhone. Rich text email, including bold text and fonts, has come to the iPhone! Starting in iOS 13 and continuing in iOS 14, you can format emails to your pleasure in the Mail app by simply composing an email, selecting the text you want to format, and then tapping the "Aa" option just above the keyboard. A menu of text formatting options will replace the keyboard, and you can format your email like a pro. Here’s how to format your text in the Mail app on an iPhone.

Do iPhone apps keep crashing on you? From the easiest and most practical solutions to a little more time-consuming but necessary updates, our guide helps you figure out what to do when iPhone apps keep crashing. We’ve put together a series of solutions to fix app crashing issues and prevent them from happening in future. Follow the steps below and, with any luck, your iPhone apps will run smoothly once again.

This article will tell you all of the new updates to the Maps app in iOS 14. The Apple Maps update in iOS 14 is a hearty one, bringing a lot of new features forward. Making travel safer, greener, and more precise, these updates will enhance the experience of any iOS-using traveler, but you have to know they're there first. Many of these features are only available in big cities so far, but hopefully we'll be seeing expansion into more areas soon. So let's take a look at cycling directions, professionally curated guides to new places, sharing your ETA through Siri, ways to refine your GPS location, and how to avoid congestion zones. This is a full guide of how to use Apple Maps with all its new updates. It's a lot to cover; let's dive in! For more great ways to use iOS 14 check out our Tip of the Day.

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