How to show on and off symbols on iPhone switches

What changed: the screenshots are now our own iPhone 17e on iOS 27.0.1, dark mode, and the wording is checked against those screens.

howtosimply.com/guides/how-to-show-on-and-off-symbols-on-iphone-switches/ · Checked October 2026 · iPhone 17e · iOS 27.0.1

4 of 4 steps with real screenshots · 1 official source below

Device

iPhone

Shown on

iOS 27.0.1 (iPhone 17e)

App

Settings

Path

Settings › Accessibility › Display & Text Size

Real screenshots

4 of 4 steps

Checked

October 2026

Sources

1 official, linked below

Step by step

1. 

   Open Settings and tap Accessibility

   Accessibility is in the group below Battery, just under General.

   Done

2. 

   Tap Display & Text Size

   It is in the Vision group, below Hover Text.

   Done

3. 

   Switch on On/Off Labels

   It is the fourth row of the page. Ours was off; even then its own switch shows a small circle as a preview, while the other switches on the page have none.

   Done

4. 

   Check the switches

   With On/Off Labels on, the switches show a symbol: a line when on, a circle when off. On ours, On/Off Labels showed the line, and Show Borders and the switches below it showed circles.

   Done

What changed: the screenshots are now our own iPhone 17e on iOS 27.0.1, dark mode, and the wording is checked against those screens.

If you do not see this option

• Search for it. Open Settings, tap the search field at the bottom and type On/Off Labels. Apple notes that the sections in Settings depend on the iPhone model. Source: Find settings on iPhone
• You want more than switch symbols. Differentiate Without Colour, lower on the same page, replaces items that rely on colour with shapes or text. Source: Change display colors on iPhone to make it easier to see what's onscreen

If this does not work

• On and off are still hard to tell apart. Increase Contrast, on the same page, raises the contrast between foreground and background colours. Source: Change display colors on iPhone to make it easier to see what's onscreen
• Other things still rely on colour. Differentiate Without Colour, lower on the same page, replaces items that rely on colour with shapes or text. Source: Change display colors on iPhone to make it easier to see what's onscreen

About this guide

Switches on the iPhone turn green when they are on. If green and grey are hard to tell apart, the switches can carry a symbol too: a line for on, a circle for off.

The screenshots are our own, taken on an iPhone 17e running iOS 27.0.1, in dark mode.

Good to know

To drop the reliance on colour in other places as well: how to make an iPhone show information without relying on colour.

In short: Settings, Accessibility, Display & Text Size, On/Off Labels on.