I don’t see “Select All” option when I highlight text on iPhone

In reply to Jagdish, I wish this worked, but it doesn’t work for me. I’m trying to do it in a draft email I just get the old options, and never “select all”, no matter where I tap. Let’s hope we get a fix!

Thank you for saying that! Totally agree with you. If Apple continues on the downward trajectory, I will also be looking for alternate NON Apple phone. They’ve become just like any other company the past year or so. Steve Jobs would never run Apple like it’s being run now. People’s heads would be rolling … FIRED!

This answer is just not true. Sometimes it's there sometimes it's not, even within the same app and while working with unpublished text. Your sarcastic trolling isn't helpful. Please get a better hobby.

Sorry not sure why but not able to edit my previous answer, weird.

If you're in IOS 17.2.1, it works however, I made a mistake .... it's a single click in an empty space in the Notes app and that will bring up "select all". It should work as described in the remaining answer, but "select all" does not come up, it only allows you to highlight a section and copy. Sorry for confusion.

so, a very helpful apple associate helped me with a solution for my iphone se: my imessages needed an upgrade and then the instructions regarding triple tapping are supposed to work. the upgrade is happening now, so we shall see :)

Thanks for the answer. So simple users like myself make it complicated. Having Select All attached to the cursor makes sense but why can’t it also be an option when you highlight a word? That actually makes more sense, to me.

Hi everyone, I’ve been following this thread for awhile. I’ve tried the various possibilities people have offered the solutions. None of them seem to work.

I’ve got an iPhone 11 pro Max, running, iOS, 17.1.1.

In a most infuriating way, very occasionally, and in no way that I can predict, I do get ‘Select All’ as an option. This is to copy chunks of text out of emails into other applications.

I also get new difficulties doing dictation, mostly to do with the cursor position.

I’d like to know from people whether there are differences across iPhone models for these problems. I’d also like to see how well select all and dictation work on a new phone in an Apple shop. It is so bad I could see within 30 seconds whether a new iPhone in the shop works as badly.

I wouldn’t want to accuse Apple of trying to move people onto new phones, but it does cross my mind.

THANK YOU. For real. One of those things you don’t realize you use until it’s unavailable. I thought it was a bug they didn’t know about but never thought to look into it, I’ve been doing:

select section/copy/paste to notes (so I don’t send dumb texts)/scroll up, repeat until full text is transferred to notes. So inefficient.

Thanks for the tip!

Thank you so much for this solution.i I have been driving myself crazy trying to find the selection all option.

this actually works...though it depends on the environment. If you cannot place the cursor...the option won't present itself.

still, thank you very much. Very helpful!!

Do your research fella, the gentleman makes a good point. If your argument was valid, I wouldn’t be able to simply hit ctrl+a on a Bluetooth keyboard to select all. The reason behind phasing out this feature probably runs deeper than revenue and copy right infringement is unclear so don’t pretend to understand.

First of all you are completely incorrect, so I’m not sure why you’re forming your response with such a confident tone as if you were an Apple developer or even remotely connected to the company. And then in addition to that to just be completely rude and passive aggressive/sarcastic at the end of your comment is just uncalled for. this is simply a user who is frustrated about Apple taking away the ease of use for a functionality that many people use. But to correct you, it’s not a feature that was removed. It’s just a feature that was simply changed in it gesture activation. So I would , advise you to do your own research before acting so superior in these forms and then attacking other individuals for expressing their concerns and disappointment Apple features. The original poster in no way stated anything that makes them believe Apple revolves around them. That is a component that you added in your own attack to belittle that person. Keep everything friendly and supportive in these forms as people come here for help demean others like yourself simply misinformed about issues here. And just so you know, I actually AM an apple software engineer who can verify that there is no truth to what you’re saying in regards to why the feature was Changed. And that is changed and not removed as you seem to believe. Unfortunately change became a lot more complicated than it used to be, but it certainly is still a feature. There’s no room for disrespect here.

So if it changed how do you do it? I use speech to text but it takes 15 minutes to select all the text and then if I bump it the speech stops and I have to start all over again so the feature is almost worthless instead of amazing which it should be

I've seen like 4-5 ways people have claimed you can still select all and none of them have worked. This is the worst way, but also the only one that has actually worked.

(in safari anyway, the slightly better option of dragging the start and stop selection markers together does work in some apps like notes, but not safari)

Dude you can not be serious please tell me that was a joke; it is genuinely impressive you’ve authored the corniest prose of 2023. I’m more than happy to look goofy here if the alternative is that you aren’t the person I’m concerned you are.

I switched from an android to the iPhone 15 Pro at the beginning of April. I often write text messages and then copy and paste them into a text file to send later. I also want to edit my texts a lot of the time, and some of them are pretty long. The fact that I can’t select all and copies/paste the whole thing into a note is maddening. I lost an entire text message except for the first two sentences yesterday because of this. I had spent half an hour writing the text.

Selecting on my iPhone is a nightmare in general. I can never place the cursor where I want to go, and it seems to jump around and select text I don’t want. I have no idea why Apple would design it this way but I hope there is some feature I can turn off. It’s really not that complicated. Double tapping on a word should select that word, long press should select all, and if you can’t be bothered to build the feature that way, select all should always be an option that hovers when your selecting any text.

I thought this was just me until I talk to another iPhone user yesterday. She says it’s the most maddening thing on her phone. That’s why she writes all her text messages in notepad and then move them over to the text message to send. A ridiculous workaround my Samsung had no problem selecting text or letting me put the cursor exactly I wanted to. My iPhone, this seems like too tall of an order. Honestly probably going to go back to my old Samsung even though I can’t return this phone and I’m still paying on it. my 15 Pro is nothing like the Apple devices I loved when I was younger. It’s over designed, the features added an updates disregard user choice… I could write a book about this. Whoever decided that users couldn’t handle select all an option – if that’s really why this is happening – didn’t conduct any user research. I’m incredibly disappointed in Apple and I won’t be buying anything else from them in the future. It’s a shame as I grew up on Apple as a kid. It used to “just work.”