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18 Siri Commands Every iPhone Owner Should Know

Siri can do a lot of things on your iPhone for you, like send messages, provide information, get directions, look up contacts, and play music. However, there are even more important Siri voice commands that every iPhone owner should know – even those who hate Siri.

Some of the big Siri commands you’ll need are introduced in iOS 16, so they’re pretty new and you’re unlikely to learn about them compared to the rest. However, the ones that work on iOS 16 and older versions of iOS shouldn’t be ignored because chances are you haven’t come across them yet and one of them might end up being the one you use the most from now on..

All of the commands below should work whether you activate Siri using the side button or the Home button, Hey Siri, or Type Siri.

1. Restart or turn off your iPhone.

In iOS 16 and later, you can ask Siri to “restart iPhone”or “restart phone”and Siri will ask you to confirm that you really want to restart your device. You can say yes or click the Restart button. The same goes for “Turn off”, “Turn off iPhone”, or “Turn off phone”.

Prior to iOS 16, Siri simply said it couldn’t do it. (More information.)

Examples of Siri commands that work on reboot:

  • “Restart iPhone”
  • “Reboot phone”

Examples of Siri commands that work for power off:

  • “Shutdown”
  • “Turn off iPhone”
  • “Turn off the phone”
  • “malfunction”
  • “Turn off iPhone”
  • “Turn off the phone”
  • “Turn off iPhone”
  • “Turn off the phone”

2. See what’s possible

Also only available on iOS 16 and later. “What can I do here?”will help you learn all the possible Siri commands for the currently open application. You may also ask, “What can I do with [App Name]?”to find out about another app on your iPhone. Either way, if Siri can’t find any results, it will suggest some useful system commands. This command only works on iPhone XS and newer models. (More information.)

Examples of working Siri commands:

  • “What can I do here?”
  • “What can I do with [App Name]?”

3. Open system or application settings.

When you need to change some iOS settings on your iPhone, the quickest way to open the Settings app is with Siri. Just say “open settings”or “open settings”or just “preferences”or “settings”.

You can also say “Settings [Menu Name]”or “Settings [Menu Name]”to open some specific submenus in Settings, but not all. Some of them work, including Accessibility, Display, General, Siri, and Wallpaper. For some, like Zoom Settings, Siri will show a button you can click to go there. Others may not do anything.

Also, if you say “preferences”in almost any app, Siri can go directly to that app’s settings. You can also say “Settings [App Name]”or “Settings [App Name]”from any app to go directly to the settings of the requested app. Oddly enough, this doesn’t work with all Apple apps, but I’ve found that it works in over 60% of them.

Examples of Siri commands to open the Settings app:

  • “Open Settings”
  • “Open Settings”
  • “Settings”

Examples of Siri commands to open app settings or menus:

  • “Settings”(in the app)
  • “Settings [app name]”
  • “Settings [app name]”
  • “Settings [Menu name]”
  • “[Menu Name] Settings”

4. Take a screenshot

Siri can take a screenshot if you’re tired of fiddling with hardware buttons and don’t like other alternatives. When you say “screenshot”, “take a screenshot”or something similar, the Siri interface quickly turns off before the screenshot is taken. This works whether or not you have Always Show Siri Signatures, Always Show Speech, or Show Apps Behind Siri turned on.

You can also send a new screenshot directly to someone with “Take Screenshot and Send to [Contact]”or something shorter like “Share Screenshot to [Contact]”.

Examples of working Siri commands:

  • “Screenshot”
  • “Take a screenshot”
  • “Take a screenshot”
  • “Take a screenshot”
  • “Take Screenshot”
  • “Take a screenshot and send to [Contact]”
  • “Share screenshot with [Contact]”
  • “Send screenshot to [Contact]”

5. Use spells

Whether you’re a big Harry Potter fan or not, it’s fun to get your iPhone to do things differently. With Siri, you can cast “Lux”, “Nox”, and “Accio”spells to turn the flashlight on, turn it off, and invoke a specific app, respectively. If you’re a dedicated fan, you can even program your iPhone to perform your own Potter spells for things like turning up the volume, finding friends, and even adjusting the text size.

Examples of working Siri commands:

  • “Lux”(turn on the flashlight)
  • “Knox”(turn off the flashlight)
  • “Accio [app name]”(open app)
  • Custom via shortcuts

6. Hang up?

Whenever you’re on the phone or making a FaceTime call and need to help out when your hands are busy doing something else, you can tell Siri to “hang up”the call for you and it will do it. It only works on iOS 16 and later for iPhone 11 and newer models. It also works on iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR, but only when using AirPods or Siri-enabled Beats headphones.

Unlike the other Siri commands on this list, you must enable Call Mute before it will work. You can go to Settings -> Siri & Search -> End Call or Settings -> Accessibility -> Siri -> End Call to toggle the switch. Voice input is only processed on the device, so you don’t have to worry about Apple eavesdropping on your conversations.

Examples of working Siri commands:

  • “Hang up”

7. Switch or adjust settings

Siri can turn many settings on and off on your iPhone for you, as well as tweak some settings, and keyword triggers vary based on preference.

Some of the settings it works with include Airplane Mode, Bluetooth, Brightness, Cellular Data, Dark Mode, Flashlight, Focus (like Do Not Disturb, Driving, Gaming, and Mindfulness), Low Power Mode, Night Shift, Smart Invert, VoiceOver, Voice Control and Wi-Fi.

Examples of working Siri commands:

  • “Enable Airplane Mode”
  • “Enable game focus”
  • “Toggle dark mode”
  • “Increase brightness”
  • “Turn on flashlight”
  • “Invert Colors”

8. Do the math

You can quickly open the Calculator app from the Control Center when you need to solve a math problem. However, sometimes Siri is faster.

Siri could solve complex math problems, but recent updates have dulled Siri’s math abilities (although Spotlight can still solve them). But you can still use Siri to do many math tasks, such as calculating tips, splitting bills, finding the cube root of a number, determining the weight of a stone, converting currencies, multiplying and dividing long numbers, and so on.

Examples of working Siri commands:

  • “One Divided by E”
  • “How many pounds are in a stone?”
  • “The cube root of 569”.

9. Play videos with subtitles

If you skip a line while watching a movie or TV show on Apple TV, you can ask Siri, “What did they say?”to rewind 15 seconds and turn on subtitles for those 15 seconds. It seems to only work in the TV app. When requesting Siri on Netflix, Starz, and other video streaming services, you will most likely get a “subtitles not available”error even though subtitles are available.

Examples of working Siri commands:

  • “What did they say?”
  • “What did he say?”
  • “What she said?”

10. Find time elsewhere

You can program the Clock app to show you the time in other cities or countries through the World tab, but that’s not a very convenient way to get the time elsewhere when you need to know quickly. Instead, ask Siri “what time is it in [Location]”.

Examples of working Siri commands:

  • “What time is it in [city name]?”

11. Add stops while navigating

In iOS 16 and later, you can ask Siri to “add a stop”while navigating. It will then ask you where you would like to go, and you will be able to respond with the desired stop. If there is more than one result, Siri will show a list from which you can choose the one you want. The location will open in the Maps app, where you can tap Add Stop to get directions to that location to your final destination.

Examples of working Siri commands:

  • “Add stop”
  • “Add Stop at [Place Name]”

12. Add items to your shopping list

Instead of typing out a shopping list item by item, tell Siri to add whatever you just came up with to the list. If you already have a list in Reminders called Shopping List, Siri will add the item to it. Otherwise, Siri will ask if you want to create one, which will be saved to your iCloud account. (You can also use Siri to add items to other lists in Reminders.)

Examples of working Siri commands:

  • “Add milk to my shopping list”
  • “Add [item] to [list name]”

13. News playback

If you don’t have time to read the news, get a quick overview of the most important recent events by asking Siri to “play the news”. Siri will play an audio report through the Podcasts app from your default news source. If you don’t like the default, you can say “change to [News Source Name]”and Siri will use it from now on. You can also hear another point of view by saying “Play news from [News source name]”. In the US, Apple News, CNN, Fox News, and NPR are supported.

Examples of working Siri commands:

  • “Turn on the news”
  • “Play News from [News Source Name]”
  • “Change to [News Source Name]”

14. Find Specific Emails

If you need to quickly find an email from a specific contact or on a specific topic, you can ask Siri to find it. You can only search by contact and subject line, so you can’t search email with Siri yet.

Examples of working Siri commands:

  • “Find emails from [Contact]”
  • “Find email about [subject]”
  • “Find [subject] of emails”

15. Watch trailers

If you want to watch or show someone a trailer for a movie or TV show, ask Siri to turn it on. If it finds one match, it will immediately play it on the TV app. Otherwise, you will be prompted to select one of several results. If he can’t find it, he will say the trailer is not available.

Examples of working Siri commands:

  • “[Title] Trailer”
  • “Trailer for [Title]”
  • “Turn on [title] trailer”
  • “Play trailer for [Title””

16. Share things

Using the shared sheet to send an article, TV show, or other item can take a long time if the person isn’t listed in the contact suggestion line. You can skip all the work and ask Siri to share something for you. For example, when viewing an article online or in the News app, say “share with [Contact]”. If that’s not something Siri can send a direct link to, it will take and send a screenshot instead. In any case, you must confirm the submission.

Examples of working Siri commands:

  • “Share this with [Contact]”
  • “Share with [Contact]”
  • “Share with [Contacts]”

17. Call emergency services

If you don’t like the hardware button triggers for contacting emergency services, you can ask Siri to contact them instead. Just say “Call 911″or have him call any emergency service you need to contact.

Examples of working Siri commands:

  • “Call 911”
  • “911”

18. Find your stuff

If you can’t find one of your Apple products, you can use Siri instead of opening the Find My app to find your missing device. Just say “find my [device]”and if it’s nearby and online, it will start playing audio. If it is offline, the sound will play the next time the device is connected to the network. This works on any device that supports Find My.

Examples of working Siri commands:

CDN CTB