How to Find Text on Web Page in Safari on iPhone & iPad with iOS 12, iOS 11, 10, 9

Dec 22, 2015 - 7 Comments

Safari icon in iOS If you have ever been reading a web page or website in Safari for iOS and wanted to quickly locate a particular text phrase or word within that active webpage, you’ll be happy to know that searching for matched text in Safari has gotten much easier on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch with the latest releases of iOS.

With modern iOS releases, you’ll find a simple to use and easy to access “Find on Page” option in Safari, which quickly matches any searched text on a webpage in the Safari browser. This is a very useful feature that is now quite simple to access, let’s review how finding on page works in the latest versions of Safari for iOS.

Searching on Web Pages for Words & Text Matches in Safari for iOS 12, iOS 11, iOS 10 with Find On Page

Using Find On Page in Safari is demonstrated here on an iPhone but it works the same on Ipad and iPod touch with the latest releases of iOS:

  1. Open Safari if you haven’t done so already and go to the website you wish to search (for example, the always wonderful and informative https://osxdaily.com)
  2. Tap on the top of the screen to make the URL bar and sharing buttons visible in Safari, then tap on the Share button which looks like a little box with an arrow coming out of it
  3. Share icon in Safari for iOS

  4. Scroll through the secondary action items in the Sharing options screen, scroll past Favorites, Add Bookmark, Copy, etc to find “Find On Page”
  5. The Find On Page button option in Safari for iOS

  6. Type the text or number to match within the current webpage to search for it, then tap on the “Search” button, the first match will immediately be visible and highlighted in the Safari browser
  7. Use the arrow keys next to the search box to find next and previous text matches for your search phrase on the web page, when finished tap on “Done”

How to find text on web pages in Safari for iOS 12, iOS 11, iOS 10, iOS 9

You can clear the search phrase and search again, or just tap the “Done” button and be done with it if you found what you were looking for. In the example shown, a webpage was searched for “Abbey” and the resulted was found, matched, and highlighted on screen.

This applies to Safari in iOS 9 and newer, older releases have different methods which are linked to below.

This approach is much easier to find matching text on pages compared to what existed in prior versions of iOS on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. While matching text phrases is possible in prior versions, searching for text on web pages in Safari for iOS 8 and iOS 7 and finding matches in Safari for iOS 6 and iOS 5 was much more difficult and a bit more confusing to access, which led many users to believe the feature didn’t exist at all. While Apple has changed this option several times, hopefully the newest version which is quite easy to use and access for finding text match on any web site will stick around.

If you have any other tips or tricks for searching for matched text on a webpage with Safari in iOS on either iPad or iPhone, share them in the comments below!

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Posted by: Paul Horowitz in iPad, iPhone, Tips & Tricks

7 Comments

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  1. Orion Khan says:

    Many thanks for the info… it’s also *super* handy that if you choose the “…” button at the end of the second row under the “Share” menu you can change the order of the options presented, allowing you to make “Find on page” the first choice (or second or last… where ever you want *any* of the buttons to be) when the Share menu is opened !!

  2. Heidi says:

    I am trying to do this, but it won’t highlight it or take me to it on the page. It says there is a search result (or multiple) but it doesn’t scroll to them, tapping the Up and down arrows to move between search results also does nothing. I can’t seem to find anything about it on google. Anyone have help?

  3. Susan says:

    On < iOS 8, tapping in the Search space (even though it says Google or whatever your prefs have) brings up the Find on Page facility as well as the Google search bar.

    On the Mac, its command+F, simple.

  4. Anne says:

    Good that it’s more obvious, but the old method still works fine (been using it for some time).

  5. Serge says:

    Didn’t know about that. Thanks to the always wonderful and informative OS X Daily for the tip :)

  6. Carmel says:

    On ipad in iOS9.2 the Find on page option is found under the hamburger menu to the right of the Share icon

  7. Rhiannon says:

    This is much better than it was in prior versions, which felt like a game of hide and seek.

    I use Find On Page often for research, so it’s great to have it as a real option in the sharing action menu of Safari.

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