How-To

How to Turn the Flashlight On or Off on iPhone

By Brian Burgess

Updated May 22, 2023

Need to light up your surroundings? You don’t need a flashlight, because your iPhone has one built-in. Here’s how to use it.

Modern smartphones like the iPhone are revolutionary, giving us access to calls, cameras, and the internet in a single device. They’ve also proven to be a handy replacement for another must-have household accessory—the flashlight.

You don’t need a torch or flashlight if you’ve got an iPhone. You can use the phone’s camera flash LED as a light source, lighting up dark or dimly lit environments.

If you have an iPhone, you’ve always got access to a light source. Let’s take a look at how to turn the flashlight on or off on an iPhone.

How to Turn iPhone Flashlight Off or On (iPhone X and Newer)

If you have a relatively recent iPhone (eg. an iPhone X or above), you can turn your iPhone’s flashlight on or off using the following steps:

1. Press and briefly hold the Flashlight button on your iPhone’s Lock Screen until you feel haptic feedback.
2. While the flashlight is enabled, you’ll see a white circle around the icon—point it where you need some light.
3. To turn it off on the Lock Screen, tap and briefly hold the flashlight icon until you feel haptic feedback.
4. This will switch the flashlight off—the circle around the icon will disappear.

It’s also worth noting that you can hear a sound notification when you turn it on or off if you listen closely.

Accessing your flashlight from the Lock Screen is essential in emergencies, especially when you’re in a situation where you don’t have an actual flashlight and only your phone.

How to Use the iPhone Flashlight from Control Center

While accessing your iPhone’s flashlight from the Lock Screen is simple for emergencies, you can turn it on or off from the Control Center. You’ll have additional control over the flashlight’s brightness through the Control Center, too.

To access the iPhone flashlight from Control Center:

1. Unlock your iPhone
2. Tap the top-right corner of the iPhone screen (battery icon) with a single finger and swipe down.
3. When Control Center opens, find the Flashlight icon and tap it.
4. To control the brightness of the flashlight, long-press the flashlight icon until you feel haptic feedback. Swipe up to increase the brightness or down to lower it.

How to Turn iPhone Flashlight Off or On (iPhone 9 and Older)

Older iPhones with a Home button (such as the iPhone 9 and older) have a flashlight feature. Accessing it is slightly different, however.

To turn the iPhone flashlight on or off with an iPhone 9 or older device:

1. Swipe up on the home screen to bring up Control Center.
2. Tap the Flashlight icon to turn it on and again to turn it off.
3. Long-press the Flashlight icon, and it will bring up the screen where you can swipe up to increase the brightness or swipe down to decrease it.

How to Add Flashlight to Control Center on iPhone

Can’t see the flashlight in the Control Center? You may need to add it manually.

To add the flashlight to the Control Center menu:

1. Open Settings and tap on Control Center.
2. On the following screen, find Flashlight from the More Controls section and move it to the Included Controls section of Control Center. You can also arrange where the flashlight icon appears in Control Center.

How to Turn on the iPhone Flashlight using the Back Tap feature

Perhaps one of my favorite tricks is turning on the Flashlight quickly and easily using the Back Tap feature on the iPhone. My iPhone is configured to open the flashlight with a Double Tap and my Camera with a Triple Tap.

1. To configure your Back Tap settings, head over to Settings > Accessibility > Touch.
2. Scroll down and tap the Back Tap menu
3. Now, add the flashlight either under the Double Tap or Triple Tap option.

One great things about the iPhone Back Tap, your phone doesn’t even need to be unlocked for it to work.

Using the iPhone Flashlight

You don’t need a flashlight—your iPhone is all you need to light up your surroundings. If you follow the steps above, you should be able to turn the flashlight on or off on an iPhone in an emergency.

For more, check out other iPhone features like drawing on a photo or taking long exposure photos.

Stumbled outdoors in the dark and dropped your iPhone in the water? You can always get the water out of it if you need to.