Customise sharing options on the iPhone and make them easier

You probably never thought about the sharing features on your iPhone, but you should. Hide unwanted share options you never use and put the most used first, where they are easier to access.

Many apps have sharing features and what you see when you sharing something depends on the app and what is being shared. However, sharing is broadly similar no matter what app you use, so here I will focus on sharing a web page in Safari.

Do you share or save interesting web pages when browsing using Safari on the iPhone? Make it simpler and easier to share your web finds by customising the Safari share icons that appear on the menu. Open Safari and then go to a website - RAWinfopages is a great one, but then I am biased!

Share options on your iPhone

At the bottom of the Safari screen is a Share button that looks like a square with an arrow. You have probably pressed it a thousand times, but press the share button and it looks like this, but your iPhone could look very different because it is customisable and depends on the apps you have installed. I also use the dark theme.

These are all the share options. Ignore the first row of icons because these are WhatsApp shares. The second row of icons is what we are interested in. This row of icons that are displayed are configurable and you can change the order of them, remove sharing options that you do not use and add other sharing options that are hidden.

Some are useful, some are not. Some might even be hidden. I have an option to share to Kindle that I never use, yet it takes up space and gets in the way. It would be better to replace it with a more useful share option. Many icon are off the screen, so swipe left over them and see what else is available.

The icons that appear here depend on the apps that are installed on the iPhone, so if you have the Kindle app for example, there is a Kindle share icon, but if you don't have it, you won't see the icon.

See more sharing options

Some sharing options may be hidden, some may not be needed, others may take several swipes to reach. To configure this row of icons, swipe left to scroll all the way to the right end of the sharing icons and press the More button.

View all sharing options

A list of the different ways that something can be shared is displayed. This is the order in which the sharing icons appear and Favorites come first, followed by Suggestions. To configure the list, tap the Edit button at the top.

Customize the iPhone share options

There are some system apps like AirDrop, Messages and Mail, but the rest of the apps on the list depend on the apps you have installed on the iPhone. If you have the Facebook app then it appears as a sharing option for example.

Use the switches at the right side to choose whether an icon appears as a sharing option on the share pop-up (the first screenshot). Turn on items you want and turn off those that you do not need. I don't think I have ever shared anything to Kindle for example, so turning off the switch hides this in the list of share icons.

• Turn off the switch to hide items
• Press the green plus button on the left of items in the Suggestions list to add them to the Favorites list
• Press, hold and drag the icon on the right side of the Favorites items to move them up or down the list
• Press the red minus icon next to Favorites to move them from Favorites to Suggestions

The list of sharing options can grow quite large, so to save swiping left and right looking for the icon you want, why not put the ones you use first?

Press and hold on the three-lines icon at the right side of a favorite item until you are able to drag the item up and down the list. Put the most used sharing icon first and the least used last. This way you need only to tap share and then tap your favourite icon, without needing to hunt for it.

There does not appear to be any way to change the order of items in the Suggestions list. However, you could move them all to Favorites and then drag them up and down to change their order. Just leave things you don't use as suggestions.

Your custom share options

Spend a few minutes customising the share options and the order in which the icons appear to make sharing web finds easier. Your share options could look like this or it could be very different. It is up to you to choose what you want to see and in which order everything is to appear. It can change sharing from tap, swipe and hunt for the option you want, to a simple tap and select.