One of the best features of your iPhone or iPad that you're probably not using is the share menu.
You know it — it's the strip of apps that appear when you tap the share button (the little square with the arrow erupting out of it) within an app. Introduced in iOS 8, the sharing system — which other apps can work with via a tool called "share sheets" — in iOS lets you send documents, URLs, photos and other files to other apps and services. The share icon (below) is available in a slew of core iOS apps and plenty of third-party apps, too.
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And tons of apps include share-sheet support. But you might not know about it, because Apple keeps this power-user feature relatively hidden.
Here's how to get the most out of your iPhone's share button.
Going beyond the basics
Before iOS 8, iOS limited how you could share information and files between apps. If you were lucky, you could email or text a link some place else. But starting with iOS 8, Apple added support for third-party apps. Some apps really take advantage of the share sheet and can perform smart actions based on the type of document you want to share.
By default, the sharing menu lets you share a URL, document or photo with Messages, Mail, and the Reminders app. You can also add the item you're sharing to the Notes app. Wouldn't it be great if you could put your favorite apps here, too?
You can, and here's how. Open an app with share-sheet support (we'll use Safari for our purpose) and tap the share button.
At the top of the screen, you'll see the apps already enabled and set up for sharing. Scroll all the way to the right until you select a button that says "More."
When you tap on this button, it'll open up a configuration menu to set up your share sheet.
Enabling and re-arranging apps
Tons of third-party apps support the iOS share system. When you open the "More" menu, you'll see every app that supports share sheets that's installed on your device.
There are toggles to turn support for an app on or off. This basically just determines whether an app will show up in your share sheet options or not.
Some apps such as Mail and Messages are always going to appear but you can turn-off support for other apps you might not use.
You can also arrange apps in the order you want to use them. This is especially useful if you have lots of apps with share sheet support installed.
Simply tap on the hamburger menu on the right hand side of screen and drag the app up or down to place it in the order you want it to appear.
Special features
Depending on the app, you can enable various functions in the share sheet, too.
As an example, I use the bookmarking service Pinboard. I have a bunch of different Pinboard clients installed for iOS (it's really hard to pick my favorite) and many of them have more than one share sheet option.
The app Pinner, for instance, has two share sheet options. One is simply a "Quick Pin," which will save the URL to my Pinboard quickly and without user interaction.
If I tap "Pinner," however, it opens up a secondary window where I can add a description for a link, tags and toggle whether I want the link to be saved publicly or privately.
App-specific shares
Different apps will have different default share options. For instance, in the Photos app on iOS, the share options are different than they are in Safari.
In Photos, you can choose to share to your iCloud Library and there are a host of third-party camera apps — including Snapchat — that support the share sheet, too.
You can also select and share text in apps such as Mail, Safari and Notes. This is especially useful if you want to add a snippet of text to a note or create a calendar entry based on something in an email.
The built-in Notes app has particularly great share-sheet support. You can add photos, text or a URL to an existing note or a new note, straight from the share sheet.
Apps with great share support
We'll be honest, there are a plethora of apps with great share support, but some really go a level beyond.
A few of our favorites include:
Pinterest — Works in multiple apps. In Safari, it'll even let you select the photo you want from a web page to share to your favorite board.
Snapchat — Share photos from your camera roll directly into Snapchat.
Slack — Slack is a must-have app for plenty of offices and the share extension lets you share text, photos or document directly into Slack.
Tumblr — Like Pinterest, Tumblr is an iOS app that tends to support the latest and greatest iOS features. Share support in Tumblr is robust and it works on web pages, with Apple Music and in Photos.
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