Where is the em dash on the iPhone keyboard — especially when you need drama and wit the most? Still, you can stop your sentences mid-thought for — a diversion of 3–5 words perhaps. Find out here how to insert the en dash (‘–’) and em dash (‘ — ’) characters using the iPhone keyboard ⤓ (and how to insert two-em dash and three-em dash to boot).
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How to Insert En Dash (–) and Em Dash ( — ) on an iPhone
Using the Keyboard
Time needed: 2 minutes
To enter en dash (–) or em dash ( — ) using the iPhone keyboard:
- Position the text cursor where you want to insert the em or en dash character.
Here’s where: Normally, the dashes are used like other punctuation — not separated from surrounding characters with whitespace.
Here’s when: Shorter en dashes are used to give ranges of numbers while the longer em dashes typically indicate a break in a sentence. - Tap 123 on the keyboard.
- Now tap and hold - (minus).
- Move the finger to highlight – (en dash) or — (em dash) as desired.
- Release to insert.
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Smart Punctuation
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How to Insert En Dash and Em Dash on an iPhone
Can I include dashes using iPhone dictation?
Yes and no.
To insert an en-dash character using dictation on iPhone:
- Say “en dash”.
Dictation will not transcribe “em dash” (or “long hyphen” perhaps) into an em dash character, however.
How can I insert two-em dash and three-em dash?
While the iPhone keyboard does not include access to longer dashes than em dash, you can copy them from the table below and paste anywhere on iOS.
Two-em dash ⸺ | |
Three-em dash ⸻ |
En dash – | |
Em dash — |
If you use two- and three-em dash frequently, you can set up text replacements for them, of course:
- Open Settings.
- Go to General | Keyboard | Text Replacement.
- Tap ＋.
- Paste the two em or three em dash character copied from the table above under Phrase.
- Type a character sequence that will let you enter the dash under Shortcut.
Example: You can use---(three dashes) for the two-em dash, for instance. - Tap Save.
When you now type the shortcut, the iPhone keyboard will offer the long dash character as a suggestion.
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(Tested with iOS 18 and 26; first published October 2024, last updated June 2026)