Email to PDF on iPhone

If your iPhone has 3D Touch, you may already know that you can save an email as a PDF file using 3D Touch in the built-in Mail app. It's really nice when you've got an email you want to save outside of your Mail app. You know, in case something happens to the email like it gets lost in your messy, messy inbox.

But what if your iPhone doesn't have 3D Touch, or want to save an email as a PDF on your iPad? You can't just firmly press on the email and have it magically turn into a PDF. You can, however, magically turn it into a PDF with a slightly different gesture. It's both non-obvious and easy to so do. Here's how.

  1. Open the Mail app on your iPhone or iPad
  2. Tap an email message that you want to save as a PDF.
  3. Tap the action button. The action button looks like a reply arrow (it's also used to reply to or forward email messages).

  4. Tap Print to open the printer options.

    Tap the Action button, then tap Print

  5. Pinch open the thumbnail image of the first page of your email. If your email runs for more than a page, you can pinch open any of the pages. The Printer Options will be replaced with the PDF version of your email message.
  6. Tap the Share button in the upper right corner of the screen.

  7. Select the app you want to save or share your PDF-converted email to.

    Pinch to zoom out, then tap the Share button, then select an app to share to

Thanks to the in-app sharing feature in the Mail app, you can do a number of things with your new PDF. You can send it to a nearby person using DropBox, save it to your Notes app, copy it to iBooks, and more. A lot of third-party apps support sharing and storing of PDF emails, too, like DropBox, Messenger, and Slack. The world is your oyster. Now go out there and turn some emails into PDFs.

Any questions?

Do you have any questions about how to turn your email into a PDF, even without an iPhone with 3D Touch? Put them in the comments and we'll help you out.

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