How to reply to a selected passage of text in Mail app on iOS

reply selected text Mail app

The Mail app in iOS isn’t going to win any ‘best email client’ awards, but it’s usable for what it is, and Apple continues to make improvements. Most recently, it improved the file attachment process in iOS and also allows to annotate PDF documents.

There’s also some non-feature things — shortcuts, if you will — that make the app more useful. We’ve shared some of these with you before, like how to quickly open your last Draft. And today, we’ve got another one to show you.

This tip has to do with a more effective way of replying to lengthy emails. Using the following method, you can reply to quoted text, so the entire email doesn’t get quoted in your message.

Make sense?

How to quote text in an email reply on iPhone or iPad

Step 1: Obviously, you’ll need to be in the Mail app, with an inbox message open.

Step 2: Then, select your text by tapping the screen and dragging the highlighter around your desired selection.

Step 3: Once the text is selected, tap the Reply button at the bottom of the screen.

And that’s all there is to it. You’ll notice that when the Reply message comes up, only your selected text is quoted. No, there’s nothing ground-breaking here. But for those who didn’t know about this trick before, it might just come in handy.

What do you think?