Learn how to preview files and documents in the Files app on your iPhone and iPad, streamlining your navigation and file management experience.
Quick Look makes it easy to look at the contents of a file without opening it in an app. While Quick Look is super helpful on Mac, it’s limited on iOS and has some pitfalls, like no option to preview multiple selected items.
Still, it’s something you should know about in case you have several files that you quickly need to swipe through without opening each of them in supported apps.
Press the Space Bar
If you have connected a physical keyboard to your iPhone or iPad, select the file and press the space bar to take a quick look. This is similar to how Quick Look works on Mac.
Use Quick Look from the menu
This method is not as quick and easy as pressing the space bar, but it works.
Simply touch and hold an item in the iPhone or iPad Files app and select Quick Look from the popout menu.
Remember that it could be a hit-and-miss affair because sometimes Files launches a quick preview of the selection, and sometimes it opens it.
Use a Quick Look shortcut to view multiple items
With a simple iOS shortcut, you can select multiple files of different kinds, such as images, videos, PDFs, etc., and preview them all.
While this method takes a few taps, it’s very useful when you want to preview several files without opening them one at a time. In my opinion, this is a better option than Apple’s built-in Quick Look implementation on iOS.
1) Download this simple Quick Look shortcut we have created for you.
Alternatively, you can also go to the Apple Shortcuts app on your iPhone or iPad and create it by taking help from the screenshot below. Just remember to tap the info icon ⓘ and turn on Show in Share Sheet.
2) Open the Files app and tap the menu button from the top, followed by Select.
3) Choose all the files you want to take a quick look at.
4) Tap Share or the share icon and choose Quick Look from the Share Sheet.
You can now preview all the selected items. Simply swipe left or right to go through them.
Also see: 15 ways to quickly run a shortcut on iPhone, iPad, and Mac