The iPhone laundry hack: ‘My mind is blown’

A TikTok user showed viewers how it works

A TikTok user let viewers in on an incredible laundry hack they discovered on their iPhone.

In a viral video posted last week, Aleisa Mora (@wtfaleisa), revealed to viewers that the camera app on an iPhone can inform you how to take care of your clothes and garments.

“You can take a picture of the tags of the clothes and if you have an iPhone, your phone will just tell you exactly how to take care of those clothes, and it’s not an app, it’s just built into the camera app,” said Mora. “I’ll show you how it works.”

Mora continued to explain that, thanks to a clever built-in feature, you can snap a photo of the item’s label, and your iPhone will be able to tell you what each of the laundry symbols printed on the tag means. She proceeded to demonstrate to viewers how to use the feature by using it on the tags of one of her shirts.

She explained: “So what you’re going to do is you’re going to press the little i, when it has the little sparkles on it, that’s how you know it’s working. Then when you click it, it’s going to bring up ‘Look Up Laundry Care’ so you’re going to click that and when you click it it’s going to bring you to this really cool menu where it just tells you exactly what all of the icons mean and exactly how to take care of your garment.”

The symbols indicated the maximum temperature Mora’s shirt could be washed and ironed and whether or not it could be used with bleach.

“I say this a lot, but I was definitely born in the right generation because what do you mean a little rectangle in my pocket can take a picture of the tags of my clothes and tell me exactly how to take care of the clothes without downloading an app, it’s just built into the little rectangle,” she concluded. “That’s insane to me.”

“I love living in the future,” Mora captioned the video - which has since received more than four million views on TikTok. Many viewers took to the comment section to express their gratitude, calling the hack “amazing”.

“So cool!” one person wrote, while a second added: “You’ve made my life 100 times better.”

A third wrote: “GAME CHANGED.”

This feature can reportedly not only be used to identify laundry symbols but also be used to identify plants, dog breeds, cat breeds, statues, artworks, books, and more. However, to access the feature, you have to have an iPhone SE or later and be running on iOS 16 or 17.