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Using your phone as a magnifier

Published on 11 Feb 2024

Traditional handheld magnifiers can be very effective sight loss tools - many of our beneficiaries use them all the time – but did you know that you can use your smartphone or tablet as a magnifier too?

This can be especially handy for when you’re out and about and need to read train tickets, menus and the like. Read on to find out more.

Using the built-in camera

Many smartphones and tablets have a high-quality camera built in and this can also serve as a digital magnifying glass.

To magnify something with the camera, follow these steps:

Step 1

Open the Camera app, either by touching the icon or by using a voice command with Google Assistant or Siri.

Step 2

Point the camera at the thing you’d like to magnify.

Step 3

Use the 'pinch to zoom' gesture to magnify - hold your thumb and forefinger together on the screen and drag them apart. This should adjust the magnification level on the ‘live’ image.

Step 4

Another way to magnify using your camera is to simply take a photo, then view it in the gallery, using pinch to zoom to make things bigger.

Tips

If the lighting is too dim for you to see, even with magnification, the torch on your smartphone should help.

You might prefer to use a stand for your phone to keep it steady and so you have your hands free.

Magnifier on iOS/iPad

If you have an Apple device, then it’s worth trying the built-in magnifier app as it’s especially designed to help people with visual impairments.
The app helps you magnify things and gives you other visual options, such as changing the ‘colour filter’. This means, for example, if the text is printed black text on a white background, on your screen you’ll see it as white on black. You can choose other colour schemes too, like blue on yellow or whatever suits your eyes best.
You can also adjust the brightness and contrast.
For more information read Apple’s Help page on using Magnifier on your iPhone or iPad

Other apps

There are lots of apps in the Google Play store and the Apple app store which do similar things to Magnifier on iOS. Do a search for something like ‘magnifying glass’ and have a play with a few of them to see what suits you best.
Google do make a magnifier app, but please note it only works with certain devices at this time.
As well as magnifying images, there are apps and features which can read out printed text for you. For more information on this, take a look at our resource, Sight loss aids for reading printed text.