Since I’ve updated to iOS 16.5, the “select all” option when highlighting text on my iPhone is no longer there. I want to see the “select all” option when I am typing something (highlighting the words I just wrote)
how to fix this?
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
iPhone 11
I got it! In the text message, with the cursor anywhere, press and hold it for just a second. A bubble will pop up above your finger and then select all will be an option! I don’t know why the powers that be keep “fixing” things that aren’t broken!
The next problem to solve is the mess that ensues when you try to put the cursor somewhere to add or correct or change something in this very message. Sometimes it will highlight a word close to where you touched. Sometimes it will highlight the word with the options to move the highlighted area to include a bigger field. Eventually, if you keep tapping different places the plain old cursor will show up. At that point, I use the spacebar to move it to where I want to go. Very inefficient and annoying. (Or I could be doing it incorrectly. If so, please let me know how to do it properly.) 😉
This applies to "Notes" application only, I did not try in other applications like iMessage. If you double click on an empty space in a Note, the "select all" option will pop up.
However if you double click on a character in a word, it will highlight the word and then you will have to manually move the cursor to highlight all the text if you want to copy and paste elsewhere. If you triple click on a word it will highlight the entire paragraph and can then move cursor to copy.
Sorry if this doesn't answer your question. It may be different depending on the app you are talking about. If it's an app other than notes, please specify.
The most effective thing I have found, and it is not consistently effective, is to go to the end of wherever I want the Select all to be and click right there right next to the last character and it will give me select all in my options
But it’s annoying that there isn’t a more Straightforward way to make that happen
Safari “Select All” Workaround (iOS 17)
Select All works on the resultant PDF preview you have opened. Cancel to return to the webpage. Yay!
I agree. “select all” option was there a usable prior to iOS 16.5 but now it is gone. Select all has always been a text select feature but apple seem to have accidentally removed it.
Workaround. If in Safari next to the web address bar, see if ‘Reader’ is available. If so select Reader, and select to send by Email. In the email draft, click the body and close ‘Select All’.
Hi MadameCassie,
The option to select all is not outlined as a method in the Apple Support article Select, cut, copy, and paste text on iPhone so it would appear you're not seeing that option because it was not made as an option.
You may provide feedback regarding your use of Apple products or software via the page Product Feedback - Apple for review.
Regards.
Here is what I noticed tonight. I DO still have the select all feature at times. It works in some apps but not all. I used it tonight in one app, but after copying and pasting it into another I could not get it to work again.
So is it possible some apps have it and others don’t?
Hi Anthony,
I just tried this in NotePad and it did not work. Like before, if I am able to select a portion of the document that is BLANK, and I can just mark a spot for the "blinking cursor/vertical line" then, yes, the Select All becomes an option.
But if I select a WORD, as Apple causes to happen most of the time, I do not receive "Select All" as an option.
I just downloaded the 16.6 patch hoping the select all feature would be restored, but it wasn’t.
Why would apple remove conveniences rather than enhance them?
Very baffling.
Since I use my IPhone to write sometimes entire chapters, I need select-all so badly. Why take away basic features?
Yes, exactly! (claps) You can find Select All just about anywhere by doing that little double tap - a real timesaver. 🥇
It is a feature. Apple determined that it is better for you not to be able to select all. All is too much for the user to handle.
Apple has instead chosen to only allow you to select small amounts of text because ALL is too much. Also, select all allowed some users to select all of an article or other text and this allowed them to save a whole story from a site.
This is not a profitable thing for publishers so Apple decided that the publisher should be taken care of over the user. Apple doesn’t just think that selecting all is bad for you as a user, but also bad for big businesses which are more important than the annoying user.
Thank you for your patronage.
[Edited by Moderator]
The iPhone is becoming inefficient for business activities by discontinuing this feature. The option is a common work activity while using a work device, already it has proven to disrupt many of my uses of the device.
What are wholly bizarre answer! If you really are employed by Apple, I think you need to have some helpful instruction about how to present information concerning users. What needs to happen here is if you really are removing “select all” as an option, you’ll explain it in someway that is a win for both the users and the people presenting material on the web. The way you have presented it is a loss for users, and if this remains the next time I’ll be considering a phone it won’t be Apple….
And completely amazing is your idea that users don’t matter, which you present in the last part.
Well, Anthony -
I’m glad that works for you…but it doesn’t work for me! You were probably the smart one who took a hard pass on the last update…which seems to be why the rest of us no longer have this option!
But I’m sure they will find a way to fix it…it will just have a price tag attached to it in one way or another. If we don’t have to buy it outright, they will find a way to get even more “details” about our lives and will make even MORE money from selling all the “data” they’ve scammed off of us!
I’m buying a Samsung.
Cheers!
I don’t see “Select All” option when I highlight text on iPhone
