Use these workarounds to replicate the features of the Action button on the iPhone 15, 15 Plus, or older iPhone models for quicker access to tasks.
The Action button is only available on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and all iPhone 16 models. It’s basically a shortcut button that can trigger a pre-set action when you press and hold it. The feature possibilities are endless, as when paired with the Apple Shortcuts app, it can be configured to do pretty much anything.
Because older iPhones lack the extra button, you can’t get the exact same experience. But you can use existing features on your old iPhone to trigger important actions. After all, the Action button is just a quicker way to perform tasks like opening the camera or starting a voice recording. If you can do the same without the Action button, then it’s a win in my book.
Here are six ways to quickly perform tasks on your old iPhone, just like the Action button works on newer models.
1. Use Back Tap
The Back Tap accessibility feature is the closest thing to the Action button in terms of quickly performing tasks on your iPhone. All you need to do is double-tap or triple-tap the back side of your iPhone to run a configured task.
Back Tap works even when your phone is locked or has a case on. Additionally, unlike the Action button, which can do just one thing (unless you use these workarounds), you can do two things with Back Tap — one with a double tap and one with a triple tap.
2. Use AssistiveTouch
With this iOS accessibility feature, you can add a virtual floating button on your iPhone or iPad screen and perform three different actions using single tap, double tap, and long press.
You can configure the taps and press to trigger system and accessibility functions, as well as Siri shortcuts. Secondly, if you configure one of the taps to Open Menu, it can show several other handy system actions.
Note that, unlike the Back Tap method, your iPhone’s screen must be awake to use AssistiveTouch.
3. Use Today View, Home Screen, and Lock Screen widgets
You can add the Shortcuts app widget to quickly see information or activate shortcuts from the Today View, Lock Screen, and Home Screen.
The volume button can be used for a lot more things than just changing the media playback sound. And using the Rebind Siri shortcut by Stonks, you can set the volume up or volume down buttons to perform one of the different actions like changing the brightness, enabling Dark and Light Modes, toggling the flashlight, activating and deactivating cellular data or Wi-Fi, take screenshot, and such.
While the premise of this shortcut is noble, given the iOS restrictions it has to work around, the final results can be inconsistent. But if you’d like to give it a try, we’ve outlined the steps below:
1) Get the Rebind shortcut on your iPhone.
2) Tap the Rebind shortcut tile in the Shortcuts app and choose Rebind from the slide-down menu.
3) Choose if you’d like to configure the action to Volume up or Volume down button. I’m choosing Volume up.
4) Select a category of action like Brightness, Appearance (Dark or Light Mode), Flashlight, Camera (front or back camera), Internet (Airplane mode, cellular, and Wi-Fi), or Miscellaneous (take a screenshot or no action). I’m choosing Internet.
5) Pick the sub-action, which in my case is Toggle cellular.
6) Allow the shortcut the necessary permissions by choosing Always Allow.
7) Tap Start (start using bindings).
You’ll notice a tiny square icon in the Rebind shortcut tile, signifying it’s running. Now, go out of the Shortcuts app (and if it’s iPhone 14 Pro, 14 Pro Max, or iPhone 15, you’ll again see the Rebind shortcut icon in the Dynamic Island, signifying it’s running.) The volume button will work to activate the set action only when Rebind is running. It won’t work if you force quit the Shortcuts app.
8) Finally, press the volume up button, and it should perform the set action, which, in my case, is toggling cellular data on or off.
Here’s a screen recording of me toggling cellular data on and off using the volume up button on my iPhone. You can see the slight increase (and later decrease) in the volume slider when I press the volume up button, and you’ll also notice the green cellular data icon turning on and off.
You can buy inexpensive NFC tags from Amazon and use the NFC option inside the Automation tab of the Shortcuts app to create automations that will trigger when you tap the NFC tag with your iPhone. This is certainly not as nice as the Action button, but something that might be fun to experiment with.
6. Other workarounds
Add to iOS Lock Screen: iOS 18 and newer allow you to remove the flashlight and camera buttons from your iPhone Lock Screen and replace them with some other action.
Add the feature to iPhone Control Center: You can customize the iOS 18 Control Center to your liking and add useful system and third-party controls there for quick access.
Create a shortcut and add it to the Home Screen: Lastly, you can always create a Siri shortcut and add it to your iPhone or iPad Home Screen to run it quickly. For instance, I’ve set the Action button on my iPhone 16 to start a voice recording. But if your iPhone doesn’t have an Action button, you can create a simple shortcut to record voice memos and add it to the Home Screen to start recording with one tap.
Also, check out: 13 tips to use the iPhone 16 Camera Control button like a pro