Apple has quietly slipped in a much-awaited quality-of-life update in iOS 26 Developer Beta 1—adding the swipe-to-go-back gesture in the Settings app. It’s small but mighty.

In iOS 26, users can now simply swipe from the left edge of the screen to go back inside the Settings app—similar to how it works in many other Apple apps.

0:00
/0:07

Via: u/_R1CH (Reddit)

The attached video above shows this gesture in action, with a subtle arrow appearing during the swipe. This small UI update fixes a long-standing inconsistency across the system.

Reddit user u/_R1CH spotted the change, and the thread has since attracted a bunch of mixed reactions.

Here are some user reactions fropm Reddit:

  • u/vanilla-thunda: “Nice! It’s always felt weird tapping ‘Back’ at the top left when every other app supports swiping.”
  • u/Mixotic: “This is how it always should have worked. Feels way more natural.”
  • u/SoundOfClouds: “Took them long enough. Android had this vibe a while back.”
  • u/Trobroth: “Now if only the gesture wouldn’t sometimes conflict with search field swipes...”
  • u/d3v1ant: “Hope they don’t limit this just to Settings. Needs to go system-wide.”
  • u/canary_june: “More gestures = better experience. iOS needs to feel less rigid.”
  • u/SlowPacedTech: “Bugs aside, this actually improves usability on bigger phones.”

It’s not the flashiest feature in iOS 26, but this tiny swipe tweak just might be one of the most appreciated. Apple, more of this, please.