How to Drag and Drop Between Apps on iPad

Drag and drop on iPad lets you pick up an item with your finger — a photo, a block of text, a file, or a link — hold it while you navigate to another app, and then drop it there. It's a faster and more natural way to move content between apps than the traditional copy-and-paste approach.

For example: you're looking at photos in your Photos app and want to include one in an email. Instead of copying, switching apps, tapping the attachment button, and finding the photo again. You can long-press the photo, drag it to the bottom of the screen while still holding it, tap the Mail app to open it, navigate to a draft, and drop the photo directly into the message body. The whole thing takes just a few seconds.

Drag and drop is especially powerful when two apps are open side-by-side using Split View. With both apps visible at once — say, Safari on the left and Notes on the right — you can drag text from a webpage directly into your note, drag a link into a message, or move a file from Files into a document you're editing.

Common drag-and-drop actions on iPad: - Photo from Photos to Mail, Messages, Notes, or Pages - Text from Safari to Notes or Messages - File from Files to another app (like a PDF into an email) - Link from Safari into a notes app - Multiple photos at once — tap with additional fingers while dragging to grab multiple items into a "stack"

Drag and drop works anywhere in iPadOS, including the home screen (to rearrange apps and create folders).