With iOS 26, Apple introduced a new application on iPhone and iPad: Preview. This app has been on Mac for a long time and, as the name suggests, it serves as a sort of system-wide file previewer, that way you don’t need an app to view every file.
Although this app may be intuitive on the iPad, I found it rather cumbersome on the iPhone. Fortunately, there is a fairly simple solution.
Previewing on iPhone is a pretty interesting concept. To me, at least, this seems redundant – largely due to the fact that Files already handled viewing PDFs, images, etc. – all in one app. However, I can definitely see the argument for having it on iPad. After all, with iPadOS 26 you can now pin folders to your dock, so I can definitely understand people who just want to view files quickly without needing to open an entire app.
This use case simply doesn’t exist on iPhone. When I open a file on iPhone, I’m usually already in the Files app. Before iOS 26, if you viewed a file in the Files app, it would handle it right away. Now it sends you back to the Preview app, which can be quite annoying.
Let’s say you downloaded a folder of photos to your iPhone. With files, you could just browse through them. With Preview, you have to continually go back and forth between the two. It’s incredibly tedious. Granted, if you choose to long-press on a file and tap “Quick View,” it will stay in the Files app, rather than sending you back to Preview. Still, you have to remember to do it every time.
Fortunately, there is a quick solution to this problem: you can simply remove the preview.
Yes, if you remove Preview, the Files app reverts to its iOS 18 functionality and will simply open files in the Files app, without any hoops to jump through. As someone who only needs the bare essentials, I really enjoy the Files app on my iPhone.
If you ever want to get Preview back, you can always reinstall it from the App Store whenever you want.
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