Common Android Gestures for Your Phone or Tablet

Tap, Click, or Touch

Programmers know this as a click rather than a tap because the coding refers to it as onClick(). However you refer to it, this is the most basic interaction and is performed with a light touch of your finger. Use this for pressing buttons, selecting things, and tapping keyboard keys.

Double Touch or Double Tap

This gesture is also called double click. This is similar to the double click of a computer mouse. Rapidly touch the screen, lift your finger, and touch again. Double-taps are often used to zoom in on maps or to select items.

Long Click, Long Press, or Long Touch

Long pressing is touching an item and pressing for a few seconds without sliding your finger.

Long presses on application icons in the system tray allow you to move them to the desktop. Long presses on widgets allow you to move or adjust the size. Long touches on the old desktop clock allowed you to remove it. Generally, the long press is used to display a contextual menu when the app supports it.

A variation is the long-press drag. This is a long press that allows you to move objects that would ordinarily be harder to move, such as rearranging icons on the Home screen.

Drag, Swipe, or Fling

Slide your fingers along the screen to type or drag items from one screen location to another, or to swipe between Home screens. The difference between a drag and a fling is in style. Drags are controlled, slow motions with which you do something on the screen. Swipes and flings are general flicks around the screen, like the motion used to turn a page in a book.

Scrolls are swipes or flings with an up and down motion rather than side to side.

Drag from the top or bottom edge of the screen into the middle of the screen to open menus in many programs. Pull downward (drag or fling) from the top area of the screen to the middle of the screen to refresh the contents in apps such as Mail.

Pinch Open and Pinch Closed

Move two fingers close together in a pinching motion, or spread them farther apart. This is a universal way to adjust the size of something within apps, such as a photograph inside a web page.

Twirl and Tilt

Twirl two fingers to spin selected objects in some programs. A two-fingered drag often tilts 3D objects within apps such as Google Maps.