How to set up an alternative to the standard  rotor gesture

The standard two finger rotate gesture for VoiceOver's rotor can be tricky for some people to perform. Here are two alternatives and how to set them up. Other alternative gestures can be set up similarly. If you make mistakes or encounter bugs while editing VoiceOver commands the result can be disastrous but fortunately there is a reset button at the base of Settings / Accessibility / VoiceOver / Commands but be aware that you may need to instruct Siri to turn off VoiceOver and seek help from a sighted person if something has affected basic VoiceOver gestures.

Two finger swipes right and left are a popular choice for the rotor gesture:

Two finger swipes to right and left are assigned by default to grouped navigation. Many VoiceOver users use standard flat navigation rather than grouped navigation and if you use flat navigation then two finger swipes to right and left can be reassigned to turning the rotor clockwise and counter-clockwise. Here's how:

Go to Settings / Accessibility / VoiceOver / Commands / All Commands / Rotor.
Swipe right to Next Rotor and double tap.
Swipe right to Add Gesture and double tap.
Locate the search field at the bottom of the screen and dictate "two hyphen finger swipe" or type two-finger swipe.
Explore near top of sreen to find two-finger swipe right and double tap to select it.
You will be told that the gesture is in use. Swipe right to find Assign and double tap.
Use two Back buttons at top left to return to your Rotor screen.
Swipe right to locate Previous Rotor, two-finger rotate anti-clockwise.
Double tap this button and proceed as before but this time setting it to a two-finger swipe left.

Use a similar process to assign a two-finger swipe left to Previous Rotor.

The rotor gestures can also be assigned to back tap gestures. These are a light double or triple tap on the back of your iPhone.

Go to Settings / Accessibility / VoiceOver / Commands/ All Commands / Rotor.
Swipe right to Next Rotor and double tap.
Double tap the two-finger rotate clockwise button.
Swipe right to the Add Gesture button and double tap.
Locate the search field at the bottom of the screen and type or dictate back, just the one word.
Explore from the top of the screen to locate Double Tap the Back of your iPhone and double tap to select this item.
Use the Back button at top left to return to your rotor search results.
Explore down from the top of the screen to locate Previous Rotor, two-finger rotate anti-clockwise.
Double tap this button and proceed as before but this time selecting and double tapping triple tap the back of your iPhone.

That will have completed assigning the double and triple back tap gestures to turning the rotor. I find that a gentle rapid double and triple tap work best. If back taps are too hard then they are ignored.

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last modified 24 October 2026