How to Use Drag and Drop Between Apps in iOS 15

Apple’s latest version of iOS for its iPhones, iOS 15, packs several new features that bring in more functionality and enhance usability on the device.

One such notable feature is drag and drop. While it was already present in iOS 14, too, its functionality was limited to within one app. But with iOS 15, Apple changes that to bring cross-app drag and drop functionality on the iPhones.

Now, you can take advantage of the feature to drag text, documents, images, and other files from one app and drop them onto the other, and in turn, spare yourself a few extra steps that you’d otherwise have to go through to move them.

Following is a guide detailing the steps required to use the drag and drop multitasking feature in iOS 15 and move items between apps on your iPhone.

Steps to Drag and Drop Text Between Apps

Dragging and dropping text between apps is a nifty functionality that can come in handy when you’re too lazy to type text. Although, in essence, drag and drop is similar to the copy-paste functionality, what makes it stand out is that it’s a tad bit quicker than copy-pasting.

To move text between apps using drag and drop, follow the steps below:

1. Open the app with the text you want to move over to another app.
2. Select the text to drag.
   
3. Press and hold the selection using one hand.
   
4. Use another hand to perform a swipe-up gesture and open the drop destination (where you want to drop the selected text).
5. Once inside the destination app, click on the input field where you want to drop the text and let go of the grabbed text.
   

Steps to Drag and Drop Pictures Between Apps

While dragging and dropping text between apps is helpful, the most useful application of the drag and drop feature is using it to move pictures between apps. This saves you the hassle of performing several clicks, which you’d otherwise be required to do to share images between apps.

To drag and drop pictures between apps, use the steps below:

1. Open the app that has the pictures you want to share/move to another app.
2. Click and hold the image to select it and drag it from its position using one hand.
   
3. Using the other hand, open the destination app where you want to drop the selected picture. It can be any app: Photos, messaging apps, etc.
4. Let go of the dragged image onto the appropriate position—depending on what app it is—to move/share it there.
   

Using this method, you can also drag and drop multiple items (pictures, documents, files, etc.) at once. That way, you don’t have to go over the process over and over for each item you want to move individually.

For this, all you have to do is, after you click and hold the image to select it (as you did in step-2), use the other hand to click on other pictures to select them. After this, continue with steps 3 and 4 to drop the selected items over to another app.

Similarly, you can also drag and drop a screenshot you just captured by doing a long press and hold to grab it and then open another app and let go of it to drop it there. And you can also put it to use to grab multiple images directly from the internet and drop them into the Files app to download/save them.

Efficiently Move Items on iPhone Using Drag and Drop

The conventional way of sharing/moving pictures, documents, files between apps is to download them to your device and then reupload on the app through which you want to share them/copy them from one app and paste onto another. Although this gets the jobs done, it’s very time-consuming and involves too many steps.

Using the drag and drop feature, on the other hand, is far more efficient as it simplifies these operations and minimizes the amount of time you have to spend to carry them out. Thus, letting you save images, share, and move items between apps with ease.