Create a Shortcut for Typing eMail Address Quickly in iOS
One of the most frustrating things to type on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch keyboards is an email address. Typing out a name, then tapping the “.?123” button to access special characters for the @ sign and numbers, then tapping it again to type more letters, than tapping it yet again to type a period, and again to finish off an email address, by the time you’re done you’ve shifted between the touch keyboards half a billion times. Instead of repeating that process over and over again, do yourself a favor and create a keyboard shortcut for your email address in iOS.
Keyboard shortcuts simplify typing anything in iOS by letting you type an abbreviation that you define which will then expand out to the full character sequence. For this trick, and example would be typing something like ‘myeml’ could be replaced by “myemail@emailaddress.com” automatically. It works wonderfully well on the iPhone and iPad and is highly recommended.
How to Create a Fast Email Typing Shortcut in iOS
- Open the “Settings” app and tap on “General”
- Scroll down and tap “Keyboard” and at the bottom of that screen tap “Add New Shortcut”
- Enter the email address at the top and create your text expansion shortcut on the bottom
- Tap “Save” and exit out of Settings, or repeat with another shortcut to create one for a different email address
Some general advice for setting these email expansions to be the most effective: use a shortcut that doesn’t match any other word, and keep them short and containing only characters that are accessible on the primary iOS keyboard.
Once configured you can try it out. Open any place you’d enter text, like Notes or Messages, and type the shortcut you set, it will automatically expand to the email address. No more tapping and switching keyboards between numbers, letters, periods, @ signs, your life is now easier and you’ll be touch typing even faster.
This works in all versions of iOS that are even somewhat modern, so you can set this up on just about any iPhone, iPad, or iPod you have laying around. The appearance of the settings may look slightly different, but the feature and its function remains the same.
If you appreciate this trick, don’t miss our list of general typing tips for the iPad and iPhone.
i didn’t get past the first instruction. in Window 10 there is no “General” under “Settings” How do i get past this fact?
How do I get my email at the top of the keyboard?
It seems like this is not possible anymore. when I click keyboards there is no “add new shortcut” in the list – only “add new keyboards” if I click on keyboards.
Please advise. Thank. yoU!
This works only sometimes, like with mail, but filling out forms it often doesn’t recognize my correctly written email from the shortcut. Anyone having same experience ??
Not sure what causes this problem….
Lubos,
Have the same problem — found that if you leave off the last letter and add that manually it’ll take it
Make your shortcut like this:
Lubos@gmail.co
Leave off the “m” and then type it in manually and it’ll accept it!
Yeah you don’t only use emails in the mail app. You have to type out emails while registering/signing in for apps or on websites in browsers. I’d have to type out my address to leave this dang comment as I’m on my phone! Anyways thanks for the tips! This is something that has annoyed me for awhile but I just searched for a solution and voila!!
Great tip! I get tired of typing my email address in forms etc. thank you!
Why should make a shortcut when mail app provide last used address list? It is enought to write one e-mail a that’s it.
Why should make shortcut while you can save in address book?
Thanks Ahmed.
Ill try that one
Is there a similar solution in mountain lion?
Yes, it is typinator app work on mountain Lion
Yes in OS X it is under the Language & Text pref settings, go to Text and add entries.
Strange, Bento doesn’t seem to recognize these shortcuts.