Unknown Uses of iPhone Volume Control Buttons

The buttons on the side of your smartphone – sometimes distributed on one side – play more roles than you think, as some people think that the “Power” button is for locking the screen or the phone. However, it performs other functions, as we have discussed in an article about uses you may not know for the phone’s power button. Similarly, the volume control buttons are not just for adjusting the volume level or answering calls quickly, but in fact, these buttons have many uses that are not related to sound. In reality, there are more than one way you can adjust the sound without these buttons, at least in Android phones. Today, we will focus on Apple phones and the uses you may not know for the iPhone’s volume buttons, considering the simple and traditional uses for some people, as many do not know them. So let’s review the most important uses of the volume buttons apart from raising and lowering the volume!

First, let’s start with the functions that most of us know, such as capturing photos, which is a very practical use, and most camera users on the iPhone benefit from it. This function works with different types and modes of shooting, such as portrait, panorama, and of course, the normal shooting mode. If you don’t know this use yet – for some reason – all you have to do is open the camera app and press one of the volume buttons to capture a normal photo or start panoramic shooting if you choose this mode. After pressing the volume button to start shooting, you can press and hold the same button again so that once you lift your finger from the volume button, a panoramic photo is captured with minimal effort.

You can use the same trick to record videos using the camera app as well. After switching the shooting mode to “Video,” press one of the volume buttons to start video recording, and to stop it, press the button again. By the way, you can start recording the video by pressing and holding the volume button, and the recording will stop as soon as you lift your finger from the button.

The iPhone camera app has what is called “Burst Mode” that you can activate to capture a photo of a moving target or when you want to capture several high-speed photos so you have a set of photos to choose from. You can capture burst photos using the rear camera and the front camera by pressing and holding the volume up button, where you will notice that the phone starts taking consecutive photos at an amazing speed. When finished, it will save them to the photo library. But if you don’t notice anything happening when trying this trick, it may be because the mode is disabled, so go to “Settings” then “Camera” and turn on “Use Volume Up for Burst”.

iPhones have a default feature for scanning files within basic apps like Mail and Notes, and even among the uses of the Files app on the iPhone. Since this feature works through the camera, you can use it by pressing the volume buttons instead of the shutter button in the middle of the screen, just like we did in the first feature. This is useful when you want to mount the camera on a document (need to scan it) at a certain angle but have difficulty maintaining this angle while moving your finger to the shutter button on the screen. Using the volume buttons in that case seems like a practical solution.

Away from helping with laziness (and for this reason, we do not recommend it), you can enter sleep mode by relying on the iPhone alarm by simply pressing one of the volume buttons. This way, you won’t need to strain yourself to find the snooze button on the screen and can continue your sleep calmly, unless you have an important appointment or find the alarm sound annoying! Similarly, you can temporarily disable the iPhone alarm using one of the volume buttons if the snooze mode is disabled.

Every second plays a pivotal role in emergency situations where you cannot waste time unlocking the iPhone, then accessing the calls app, then dialing 911 for emergency services, then calling. We explained in a previous article how to add emergency contacts on the iPhone and why you should do it. This is because Apple has made it easier to access emergency services and shortened the path, so in emergency situations, you can press and hold the side lock button with one of the volume buttons (or by pressing all three together) until the emergency scroll bar appears to access this service, then drag “Emergency Call” to the right to make the call.

We discussed in a previous topic more than one way to restart the iPhone without the power button, which is useful in case your iPhone freezes or stops working to the extent that it cannot be restarted in the usual way. You can force this process by pressing the volume up button, then the volume down button, then the side lock button (in order). It is worth mentioning that this process occurs at the hardware level unlike the usual restart process related to the software. Also, remember that you can reset to factory settings in this case, but make sure to back up your iPhone data in any way.

There is a trick in the iPhone that allows you to disable all biometric unlock methods, whether face recognition or fingerprint, so you can only use the PIN or password to unlock the phone. This is useful in some situations to provide an additional layer of security for a short period without disabling these features permanently. You can do this by pressing and holding the side lock button with one of the volume buttons for two seconds until the screen containing the power off slider appears. Here all you have to do is click on “Cancel” and then you will be prompted to enter the passcode you set when activating Face ID or Touch ID. This way, the iPhone will be locked, and it can only be unlocked using the password.

These are the most important uses that you can do with the iPhone volume buttons, but as you probably know, modern iPhones such as the iPhone 15 Pro/Max and iPhone 16 include a customizable Action button to perform a specific action quickly. If you are using an old iPhone, you can also reassign the volume buttons to perform custom actions like the Action button, and we have explained how in the topic Add new uses for volume buttons on iPhone. We recommend reviewing it to get the maximum benefit from the volume control buttons.