This Hidden Trick Can Help Keep Your iPhone's Notes App Organized

CNET

21-06-2025

Apple announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference on June 9 that the next version of the iPhone's operating system will be called iOS 26. The tech giant said iOS 26 will bring a transparent glass design to icons and menus and much more to your iPhone this fall. But when Apple released iOS 18 in September, the company made it easy to keep your Notes app more organized with collapsible sections.
Read more: iOS 18 Brings These New Features to Your iPhone
There are other ways to keep Notes organized, like with tags, but those usually apply to the whole note and not the content within the note. With collapsible sections, you can keep the content within individual notes organized and tidy so you can easily find what you're looking for.
Here's how to create collapsible sections in Notes to keep the app organized.
How to create collapsible sections
Tap the gray arrows on the left side of the screen to collapse and expand sections.
Apple/CNET
1. Open Notes.
2. Tap the new note button — the square with a pen — in the bottom right corner of your screen.
3. Add a title to the note, like weeks of the month.
4. Tap the Aa in the toolbar across the top of your keyboard. You might have to tap the plus (+) sign over the top right corner of your keyboard to open the toolbar.
5. Tap Heading or Subheading to name your sections, like the days of the week.
6. Fill out information under your headings and subheadings.
7. Tap the space just in front of your headings or subheadings, and a down arrow will appear to the left of them.
8. Tap that arrow and everything under the heading or subheading will collapse.
It's important to note that headings won't collapse into each other, and same with subheadings and titles. But if you put a subheading under a heading, the subheading can collapse into the heading. And everything will collapse under a title if there's more than one title in a note.
Now you can keep your Notes organized and tidy. I've used the feature to keep track of my work week, as well as meetings, that way I can easily look back on what I was working on earlier in the week or remind myself what I have upcoming in the week.
For more on iOS 18, here's what you need to know about iOS 18.5 and iOS 18.4. You can also check out our iOS 18 cheat sheet and everything to know about iOS 26.