How to use an external keyboard with your iPhone or iPad in iOS 18

3. iOS has several settings and features that can help make an external keyboard easier to use. To find them, go back to Settings and tap Accessibility.

4. On the Accessibility screen, scroll down to the Physical and Motor section and tap Keyboards & Typing. You can now adjust the keyboard settings to make it easier to type or use keyboard shortcuts.

5. By default, you can type the same character or repeat the same action, such as deleting text, by keeping the key pressed down. If you find you're often getting repeat characters when you don't want them, you can customise this. Tap Key Repeat.

6. Tap the toggle switch next to Key Repeat if you want to disable it or use the other two settings to customise it. Key Repeat Interval adjusts the length of time iOS waits when you hold down the key before repeating the key press again. Tap the + (plus) and – (minus) buttons to adjust the interval length.

7. The Delay Until Repeat setting adjusts the length of time between you pressing the key for the first time and the first repeat. Tap the + (plus) and – (minus) buttons to adjust the delay. Set a longer delay if you find you are triggering the key repeat by accident.

8. Tap the blue Keyboards link to return to the Keyboards settings. With Slow Keys enabled, your device will ignore key presses until you hold down a key for a set amount of time. This means your device won't register a key press if you accidentally press a key for just a moment. To enable it, tap Slow Keys.

9. On the next screen, tap Slow Keys to set the toggle switch to on, then tap the + (plus) and – (minus) buttons to adjust the length of the delay.

10. Tap the blue Keyboards link to return to the Keyboards settings. When using an external keyboard, you can perform many of the same keyboard shortcuts that you can on a laptop or desktop computer, by pressing a modifier key (CMD, ALT or SHIFT) at the same time as another key. For example, Cmd + C to copy an item. With Sticky Keys enabled, you can press each key, one after the other, rather than at the same time. To set this up, tap Sticky Keys.

11. Now tap Sticky Keys to set the toggle switch to on.

12. If you would like to be able to turn Sticky Keys on or off using the keyboard, tap Toggle With Shift Key to set the toggle switch to on. Now you can turn Sticky Keys on or off by pressing the Shift key five times.

13. By default, a sound will play whenever you press a modifier key while Sticky Keys is active. To turn this setting off, tap Sound to set the toggle switch to off.

14. To use Sticky Keys, simply press the keys for any keyboard shortcut, one after the other. To lock a modifier key (CMD, ALT, or SHFT) in a 'pressed' state, press it twice. This will save you having to press the modifier key when you want to perform a shortcut.

To ‘un-press’ a modifier key, press it again. When you press a modifier key, the icon for that key will appear in the top right-hand corner of the screen. If you lock a modifier key, it will appear in white.

To see what keyboard shortcuts you can use with you iOS device, press and hold the CMD (⌘) key and wait a few moments. This works in an app or on the Home screen.