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How do I make text bigger and easier to read on my iPhone?

Small text and a small interface are different problems — and iPhone has a different control for each.

You're here because reading your iPhone has you leaning closer or squinting, and it's easy to wonder whether the phone was made too small for you — or whether you're missing the right control. Small text and a small interface aren't the same thing, and iPhone treats them separately. This page matches the change to what's actually too small, so you can stop at the smallest useful step.

The control you want depends on what feels small. If the words themselves are too small, adjust Text Size. If you need text larger than the normal range allows, turn on Larger Accessibility Sizes. If the words are fine but the whole interface — icons, buttons, spacing — feels small, that's what Display Zoom is for. You don't have to make the whole phone bigger just because one part feels too small.

If the words are too small: Text Size

Open Settings > Display & Brightness > Text Size and drag the slider. Apps that support Apple's text-size system — Settings, Mail, Messages, and Notes among them — respond as you drag. Apps that don't support it keep their own sizing.

If the largest size in that range still isn't enough, the next level lives under Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Larger Text, where turning on Larger Accessibility Sizes unlocks sizes beyond the normal range. Start with the plain Text Size control, and add this second level only when you need it.

If the words are fine but the interface feels small: Display Zoom

Display Zoom enlarges the interface as a whole — text plus elements such as icons and buttons — on iPhones that support it. You'll find it under Settings > Display & Brightness > Display Zoom. It's a broader change than a text slider, so it fits when the layout itself feels small, not just the words.

When the difficulty isn't size

A few controls on the Accessibility screen address other reading problems, and none of them changes the size of text:

Bold Text makes letters heavier. Weight is separate from size — it can help when thin letters are hard to pick out, and it changes nothing about how large the text is.
Increase Contrast and Reduce Transparency help when the difficulty is telling foreground text apart from its background. They change how solid backgrounds look, not how big the words are.
Button Shapes and On/Off Labels change how tappable things look — for the moment when you can read everything but can't tell what to press, or whether a switch is on.

Use these when their specific difficulty shows up. They aren't a substitute for making text larger, and they aren't required alongside it.

You probably don't need to

Change every app individually before trying the system Text Size control. Turn on Display Zoom only when the words are already comfortable but the layout still feels small. Undo a comfortable setting because the screen looks different from someone else's phone. Changing text size is a normal preference: the goal isn't to preserve the way the phone looked when it left the box, it's to make the phone comfortable to use.

One app still looks small

Text size is a device-wide setting, and an app follows it only if the app is built to. If one app ignores your setting, that's the app's behavior — check whether it has its own text-size option inside its settings. Photos and videos arrive at whatever size they were sent, and some websites set their own text, where pinch-to-zoom or a reader view helps. And because the setting applies to the whole phone, a phone shared with another person keeps one size for both of you.

What to do next

One app still won't respect your text size? Tell us which one via Ask Us and we'll point you to its own setting, if it has one.