VoiceOver gestures

VoiceOver changes the way you touch your device, so it helps to have the gestures to hand. This guide is a reference to the swipes and taps used to move around the screen, select and activate items, read a page aloud, and switch the screen curtain on and off. It assumes VoiceOver is already turned on.

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Remove screen curtain

• with 3 fingers quickly triple tap the screen (if screen zoom is activated try ALT)
• ALT: tap screen 4 times with 3 fingers

Finger swipes

Swipe finger left to right

• 1 finger Left: previous icon

• 1 finger right: next icon

• 2 fingers left: move out of item

• 2 fingers right: move into item

• 3 fingers Left: scroll one page left

• 3 fingers right: scroll one page right

• 4 fingers left: scroll to previous app

• 4 fingers right: scroll to next app

Scroll up or down

• 1 finger up or down: move focus to the next or previous item
• 2 fingers down: read page starting at selected item
• 2 fingers up: read page starting at top
• 3 fingers up/ down: scroll up or down one page
• 3 fingers down when focus is on status bar: loads navigation centre
• 3 fingers up when focus is on status bar: loads control centre

Taps

Single tap

• 1 finger: select item without activating
• 2 fingers (if voice over is speaking): pause/ resume speaking
• 3 fingers: speak page numbers, rows being displayed, or image description
• 4 Fingers Near Top: move to first element on the screen (usually top-left corner element)
• 4 Fingers Near Bottom: move to last element on the screen (usually bottom-right corner element)

Double tap

• 1 Finger: activate the selected item
• 2 Fingers: stop and start the current activity. Answers or hangs up a call, pauses or resumes a video or music, plus others. See VoiceOver practice.
• 3 Fingers: toggles speech on and off.
4 Fingers: toggles VoiceOver help on or off

Triple tap

• 1 Finger: double tap the selected item

• 2 Fingers: activate Item Chooser

• 3 Fingers: toggles Screen Curtain on and off

Magic touch

• 2 finger double tap to stop speech, answer calls start/stop music