How to Use iOS 7 Spotlight Search

Spotlight search on iOS lets you search your entire phone for something you’re looking for. Whether it’s an email, app, contact, or document, Spotlight search is like indexed search in Windows; When you enter a search phrase, it searches your entire machine for files related to that phrase.

In iOS 6, you accessed Spotlight search by swiping right and having it open, and it’s been like that since Spotlight search became available on iOS, so you’d think it would be the same in iOS 7, right? False. Apple replaced the swipe gesture in iOS 7 with something the company had never implemented in iOS before, so it’s a little hard to find at first. Here’s how to do it.

Accessing Spotlight Search

To access Spotlight search and find something you’re looking for, simply use the . Isn’t it easy? Sure it does, but it’s surprising that Apple hasn’t told you to change this, and since it’s a swipe gesture Apple has never used before, swiping down in the middle of the home screen is the last gesture you can think of. of-of.

Anyway, to exit Spotlight search, you can press the Home button, tap “Cancel”, or tap anywhere in the area where your home screen is still showing.

Customizing Spotlight Search

Spotlight search comes with some customization, but not much. To access these options, open the Settings app and go to . From there, you can select the file types you want (and don’t want) included in Spotlight search. Simply tap an item to select/deselect it. A checkmark next to an item lets you know that such files will be included in a Spotlight search.

You can rearrange items based on what kind of files appear at the top of the list when you’re searching for something. Touch and hold the three horizontal lines to the right of an item and drag it to a different position – higher or lower in the list.

Personally, I don’t use Spotlight search, and unfortunately there’s no way to disable it without jailbreaking it, but it still doesn’t prevent it that much, since it’s very unlikely you’ll accidentally open it while it’s actually just. trying to open an app or complete another swipe.