I use my iPhoneThe flashlight at all times, whether I’m looking for something in my basement or need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. In fact, I use my flashlight so often that I enable a hidden setting in iOS that makes it easy to turn on my flashlight without going to the lock screen or unlocking my phone.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that this hidden iPhone feature has changed the flashlight for me.
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Back Tap for iPhone is an accessibility feature that Apple introduced with iOS 14. It lets you quickly perform certain actions — say, take a screenshot or launch your camera — just by to tap the back of your phone. Essentially, it turns the entire back of your iPhone into a single button.
This is an important benefit for all kinds of people. For me, enabling Back Tap allows me to make it a customizable button to easily trigger on the iPhone flashlight. I’ll tell you exactly how to set it up for yourself, and you can of course customize Back Tap to trigger other actions.
Also, if you want to know more about other iPhone and iOS features, check it out 10 next-level iOS 16 features and how to find the “hidden” iPhone trackpad.
How to set up Back Tap on iPhone
If you want to link Back Tap with your flashlight, camera or launch another iPhone app, the path to your iPhone settings starts the same way.
On your compatible iPhone (iPhone 8 or later), launch the Settings application and go to Accessibility > touching > return pat. Now you have the option to launch your action (in this case, your flashlight) anywhere BOTH or three taps. Although two taps are obviously faster, I suggest three taps because if you fumble with your phone, it’s easy to accidentally trigger the accessibility feature.
Once you select an option to tap, select the flashlight option — or another action if you prefer. You’ll find more than 30 options to choose from, including system options like Siri or taking a screenshot, accessibility-specific functions like opening a magnifier or turning on real-time with live captions. You can also set up Back Tap to open Control Center, go home, mute your audio, raise and lower the volume and run any shortcuts you’ve downloaded or created.
You can choose between Double Tap and Triple Tap.
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You will know that you have successfully selected your choice when a blue check mark appears to the right of the action. You can set up two shortcuts this way — one triggered by two taps and one triggered by three taps on the iPhone’s back cover.
Once you exit the Settings application, you can test the newly enabled Back Tap feature by tapping the back of your iPhone — in my case, to turn on the flashlight. To turn off the flashlight, you can tap the back of your iPhone, but you can also turn it off on your lock screen if it’s easier.
For more great iPhone tips, here’s how prevent your iPhone screen from dimming at all times and cancel all subscriptions you don’t want or need.